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PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


MARGARITA SPALDING GERRY 

PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 
THE TOY-SHOP 
THE FLOWERS 


HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK 
Established 1817 


PHILIPPA’S 

FORTUNE 


By 

^WVvf. Margarita (Spalding^ Gerry 

Author of ' ^ 

"the plowebs” “the tot shop” etc. 



Harper ^ Brothers 

Publishers 

New York and London 



NOV 26 192l_ 

g)CI.A630475 

Philippa's Fortune 

Copyright, 1921. by Harper & Brothers 
Printed in the United States of America 

L-V 

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PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


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PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


CHAPTER I 

I BELIEVE I'd know it was Friday evening 
1 even if I didn't know it." 

Philippa stopped stirring the fudge long 
enough to make this observation. 

Anne laughed with comfortable superiority. 

''That's what people call an Irish bull, 
isn't it? How absurd you can be, Philippa! 
Just what did you mean to say?" 

"I imderstand what Philippa means," Vir- 
ginia said, eagerly. "There are lots of things 
you know like that. That's why I can say 
some things best in music — " 

Philippa's eyes snapped. 

"Say it in music, then. The fudge isn't 
ready. I'd like to see whether you can make 
Anne believe anything she doesn't see." 

A httle languidly Virginia went to the 
piano. A decided enough tone would usually 
start her. She was a slender, delicate girl of 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


thirteen, with beautiful, absent eyes. Her 
hands once on the keys, however, her face 
became colorful and eager. Gropingly at 
first, then with gathering confidence, she 
improvised. When her hands were still Anne 
was the first to speak: 

^‘That sounded very well, Virginia, but I 
didn’t catch any air that I can hum. Perhaps 
if you try again you can make one up — ” 

''Now you're absurd!” Philippa was al- 
most bursting with her eagerness to speak. 
"You’ve got a blind spot somewhere. Does- 
n’t that rambling, happy kind of melody 
make yon feel — start thoughts, at least?” 

Anne carefully picked up a dropped stitch 
and changed needles before she answered. 

"I don’t know that it does. It just made 
me feel comfortable and a little drowsy, if 
that’s what you mean. It didn’t seem to 
have much beginning or end.” 

" Gosh! Anne, you do bore me sometimes.” 

"'Gosh’ is a very unladylike expression, 
and you’re batting your eyes again, Philippa. 
I know your mother wants you to stop that. 
It’s a nervous habit.” 

" Now wouldn’t that jar you?” Philippa’s 
dramatic wave of the wooden spoon came 
dangerously near scattering drops of liquid 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


chocolate all over the rug. She had turned 
to Virginia as the kindred soul who could 
understand. Her emotion was a perfectly 
sincere one, but the vivid child could never 
quite avoid a shade of the unconsciously effec- 
tive. “Why can’t you ever be interested in 
the really important thing, Anne? What 
if I do bat my eyes? Why, it’s just because 
there isn’t any beginning or end to it that 
Virginia’s music is like Friday night. It’s 
the one night in the week when you don’t 
have to think about time — ^how long you take 
to do things and when you have to go to bed. 
You can just — ^just float along and feel it’s 
endless. And there were so many other 
things in that nice, rippling, murmiuing sing- 
song — ” 

“What things?” 

“Well, didn’t it make you feel happy and 
comfortable and — ^and — luxurious — and ex- 
pecting fun to-morrow? And you’re going to 
be happy always — ’n’ everything — never 
going to be fussed about lessons— ’n’ probably 
we’ll And chestnuts open in Beecher’s grove. 
Didn’t you think all those things, Virginia?” 

Virginia’s eyes were dreamy soft, not elec- 
trically bright like Philippa’s. 

“I don’t know. I felt happy. But — but 
3 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


I can’t just exactly pick the way I feel all to 
pieces the way you can.” 

”That fudge smells good, anyway.” Anne 
had an elderly, indulgent air as she tried to 
bring herself down to the level of the two 
childish ones. She often felt they were both 
quite mad, but still she could never be en- 
tirely comfortable to be left outside even the 
most incomprehensible flight. 

Philippa sighed — an eloquently effective 
sigh. 

''Look here, Anne.” She spoke in an 
unconscious imitation of the patient tone 
Miss Graham, the new eighth-grade teacher, 
used when she tried to convince hopelessly 
befogged beginners in algebra that there 
really was some sense in doing things with a 
and b and x. "When I say 'Friday night,’ 
what color comes into your mind?” 

"Why should any color come into my 
mind?” 

"That isn’t the point. What color does 
come?” 

The amused but also slightly impatient 
Anne put down her knitting and closed her 
eyes. Experience had taught her there 
would be no peace until she yielded to Phil- 
ippa’s whim. 


4 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


'"Red.” She gave the verdict after a 
moment’s conscientious research. 

That's the idea!” Philippa said, delight- 
edly. ‘^Unless it’s just because that sweater 
you’re knitting is red,” she added a suspicious 
after-thought. But it is red, mostly warm, 
soft, rich, plushy red. And it’s golden brown, 
too, because you know that to-morrow morn- 
ing the water in Klingle brook will be golden 
brown where it runs down the stone into the 
pool. And — ” 

Philippa! Don’t you think I’d better 
stir the fudge while you’re talking?” came 
Anne’s slightly exasperated voice. It’s get- 
ting ready to string; I can tell from the way 
it looks. Next thing you know it ’ll grain — or 
bum.” 

The crisis was too evidently imrninent to 
be disregarded. Philippa’s red mouth was 
tightly compressed and her brown eyes very 
serious as she tested a teaspoonful of the 
boiling mass in a cup of cold water. The 
other girls watched her. Somehow one always 
did watch Philippa. If she herself was in- 
terested, eyes turned toward her. Sometimes 
Anne stmggled against the impulse. She 
liked to be the center of things herself. 

“Take care, Philippa,” she interjected now, 
5 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


wamingly. ''I always — ” She didn’t finish 
her sentence, but, instead, tried to make up 
her mind whether Philippa really was pretty 
or not. 

^^Her mouth is too big,” she thought, crit- 
ically. ^'No, she isn’t pretty reaUy. But — 
my, but her eyes are bright ! And her cheeks 
are such a lovely deep pink. She must be 
pretty. No. She’s too big. She’s almost 
fat. I believe I’ll think up a descriptive par- 
agraph about her. Miss Graham is always 
springing something like that on us and I 
never know what to write about. Philippa,” 
she said, aloud. 

‘‘Yes, what is it, Anne?” 

“May I have a pencil and some paper? 
There is something I want to write down.” 

“All right. In the drawer of the library 
table,” Philippa mumbled, her eyes on the 
fudge. 

So Anne, her eyes piercingly on her friend, 
wrote this paragraph, which, years afterward, 
she came across and read, rather wondering 
at her own childish insight : 

“My friend is one of those persons that 
you always have to have very decided opin- 
ions about. Sometimes you think she is the 
nicest girl you know and sometimes you think 
6 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


you never want to speak to her again. She is 
especially so about her looks. You always 
have to look at her. Sometimes you think 
she is prettier than anyone else, and some- 
times you are sure she isn’t the least bit 
pretty. You have to decide all over again 
every time. So I thought I would write down 
how she looks and see if I could tell whether 
she is pretty or not when I saw it written. I 
don’t know exactly what 'regular features’ 
means, but if it means the kind of features 
you would expect, hers are not that. When 
you look at her nose it isn’t a bit like the 
Greek ones they make us draw, and her 
mouth isn’t a bit small, and she wears bangs 
because her mother thinks her forehead is too 
high. And none of my favorite characters in 
books have as fat cheeks as she has. But 
somehow all her features seem to go together 
and I like her nose. It’s kind of short and 
decided and it wouldn’t be half as pretty as it 
is if it was perfectly straight. And I don’t 
really believe that having her mouth smaller 
would make her prettier. It’s usually very 
red. When she laughs it curls up at the cor- 
ners in a nice way over her white teeth, and, 
with the dimple in her chin and one just at 
the side of her mouth, it makes you feel all 
2 7 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


warmed up and happy and as if there was 
something fearfully funny and exciting that 
you were going to do the next minute. I 
don’t know anything else to say about her 
except that she is tall for her age and stands 
straight and holds her head in a way that 
makes some of the girls think she is stuck up, 
but she isn’t. She uses lots of words when 
she is talking that the rest of us don’t, that 
makes her seemed conceited, but I don’t 
think she is — very. Her hair is just dark 
brown and clipped, but it has curly ends and 
looks full of pep. Her hands are rather large, 
but she has nice long fingers that take hold as 
if they could do things. She — ” 

''Now!'' This from Philippa interrupted 
Anne’s writing. She folded the piece of 
paper hurriedly and put it in the pocket of her 
middy. The fudge was done. At just the 
right moment the chafing-dish was whisked 
off the little electric stove, the vanilla added, 
and the thickening mass vigorously beaten 
until it was spread in the buttered platter at 
the last possible moment that it could have 
been spread. 

When the fudge was out on the window 
ledge, cooling, the three girls snuggled down 
in easy chairs and stretched their already 
8 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


warm toes out to the fire. Even Anne put 
down her knitting, although the sleeve she had 
promised herself to finish that evening was 
not nearly done. It was, somehow, a very 
precious moment to them all. 

‘^That is such a satisfactory fire, to-night,” 
said Philippa, with a happy sigh. ' ‘ And isn’t 
it fun that it’s cold enough to make the fire 
comfortable?” 

”I think it is very kind indeed of yoiu* 
father and mother to let us have your living 
room all to ourselves every Friday evening,” 
Anne said, slowly. ^ ‘ I would love to have you 
at our house, only my mother is so afraid we’ll 
muss things up that we don’t have such a 
good time.” Anne bent forward to poke the 
log as she spoke, and her color was higher 
than usual. The pink in her cheeks made 
her very pretty. Her small, neatly cut 
features and the silky black hair, parted and 
twisted into smooth coils over her ears and 
then turned up into heavy braided loops with 
wide ribbon bows, were usually a little too 
exact to be really pretty. 

^^Mine never can understand why I always 
come here every Friday night,” Virginia said, 
a little plaintively. '‘She says I can have 
any kind of a supper or a party even every 
9 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


week at our house if I like. And father says, 
if I’ll remind him he’ll bring home the biggest 
box of candy he can find. But — somehow — 
it’s just more natural to come here.” 

‘^Your father and mother are just as nice 
as they can be,” Philippa said, with gener- 
ous warmth. ‘'And of course everything’s 
much handsomer up at your house. And 
mother’s always saying that every time she 
sees Anne’s house she feels as if she must come 
home and go right to painting the woodwork 
in our reception room; it doesn’t seem as if 
she could live without having our white paint 
look as if it were really enamelled. But — I 
suppose we’re all just foolish about our house 
and our garden and our part of the brook just 
because it is ours. There really doesn’t seem 
to be any other very good reason. But there 
is an awfully good reason about our being 
crazy about the living room. We all wanted 
it so much before father built it on; and 
every single thing in it we all thought about 
and dreamed about just ages before we got 
it. The money for our vacation trip last 
summer went into it, and my music lessons 
and Doreen’s trip to California and Bayard’s 
motor cycle. And most of the furniture we 
all went downtown to buy together. Why, 
10 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

we waited a whole week after we had the 
money for the last bookcase until Bayard 
could come home from college last summer. 
We knew he’d hate so to miss going with us. 
So perhaps that’s why you like coming here. 
It’s just as if you got aU that’s nicest in the 
whole Gale family all at once — ” 

Philippa jumped up. She made going to 
the window to get the candy an excuse to 
hide the moisture that had come into her 
eyes. 

''I just hate the way I cry when I’m 
excited,” she thought to herself, fiercely. 
‘'The other girls don’t do it. It makes me 
feel Uke such a softy. And I’m not a softy — 
I’m notr 

The embarrassing dew was quite gone from 
her eyes. It was certainly a very practical 
little girl who carefully piled the squares of 
velvety deliciousness on a plate and offered 
them to her guests For a few minutes they 
enjoyed the candy in contented silence. 
Then Anne said: 

“Funny how much better candy always 
tastes when you have made it yourself and 
smelled it cooking and waited for it to 
cool.” 

“I don’t think it’s funny. I think it’s 

II 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


natural,” Philippa said, decidedly. ” That’s 
true about everything — ^that the thing you’ve 
worked over you enjoy more, imless it’s hats 
— ” She began to laugh. The others joined 
in helplessly. They always had to when she 
laughed. ' ' Oh, if you could have seen the hat 
Doreen tried to make!” She went off into 
peals of laughter. They had a mental vision 
before their eyes of a hat of siupassing ab- 
surdity — all the funny things they had ever 
observed in hats. 

The laughter began with a little gurgle of 
sheer delight way down in Philippa’s throat. 
Then it burst all bounds and gushed out — 
pealed out — unrestrained, perfect, delicious 
mirth. 

'‘Now why should I laugh?” Anne recov- 
ered herself long enough to say this rebel- 
liously. “I never saw Doreen’s hat.” 

That started Philippa off again. They 
laughed until they were breathless, until the 
tears streamed from their eyes, tmtil their 
sides ached. 

“It looked as if some one had smashed it 
down over her eyes. The bow looked as if 
she had chopped it out of a piece of wood. 
The feather was so sad"' Philippa gasped out 
as some new detail flashed before her vivid 


12 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


imagination. Philippa was sttirdily built, 
robust as well as tall for her thirteen years. 
But her physical bulk always seemed forgot- 
ten at such moments; she was like some 
flashing, elusive spirit of pure fun. 


CHAPTER II 


W HEN they were qiiiet again it was a 
pleasantly dreamy mood they fell into. 
The fudge at their elbows, though no longer 
the fine raptme of its first appearance, was 
a good friend and a sufficient store — even 
though steadily dwindling — to be trusted to 
last out the evening. The fire, past its leap- 
ing, roaring youth, was presenting a heart of 
mystery. 

^Ht’s a shame not to use those coals for a 
marshmallow toast, said Philippa. 

‘^How on earth can you think of anything 
more to eat now?'' demanded Virginia, a little 
fretfully. 

You needn’t think you’re being more spir- 
itual-minded and poetic because you think 
that,” was Philippa’s most unexpected retort. 
^Tt’s just because you’re not so healthy as I 
am. Bet you I can beat you talking ’bout 
‘ what-we’re-going-to-do-when-we-grow-up ’ 
all the same.” 

Virginia opened her lips, but closed them 
again. She was deterred from starting an 
14 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


argument by two considerations : They were 
all too comfortable and Friday-nightish really 
to relish a quarrel. And then, however elo- 
quent she could be in reverie, she never could 
produce disconcertingly spicy remarks on 
such short notice as Philippa could. That 
was a special gift which all Philippa’s friends 
held in wholesome regard. It was as if her 
stock of available wits was always conven- 
iently packed in a little Gladstone bag ready 
for traveling. 

So Virginia said, meekly, Yes, let’s.” 

Anne, too, was willing. She never soared 
much in her imaginings, but she had a fine, 
practical efficiency in details latent in her 
which, under the jurisdiction of a distinctly 
managing mother, never found much outlet. 
So she always came out strong in planning 
the house she was going to live in when she 
was married, her own clothes, and the clothes 
of her children through all stages from baby- 
hood to the bridal costume, with a slight 
diversion in favor of the bridesmaids’ dresses, 
which could not, of coiuse, all be in the 
family. 

Anne, therefore, had the start. Not usually 
very full of conversation, it was difficult to 
stop her now. After the other girls had been 
15 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


conducted through an excessively prosperous 
and up-to-date cement house with a red-tiled 
roof, and had mentally witnessed the instal- 
lation of every piece of f umitiu*e from kitchen 
cabinet to piano, they turned restive. Phil- 
ippa took unfair advantage of a moment of 
painful uncertainty over the drawing-room 
rug to interrupt with: 

Listening to Anne’s ^ what-we’re-going-to- 
do-when-we-grow-up ’ is about as exciting 
as reading storekeepers’ circulars. Now, Vir- 
ginia?” 

Anne stiffened with indignation and, had it 
not been for the genial atmosphere, would 
have made a fitting rejoinder. As it was, she 
settled back with that expression of dignified 
disapproval that gives so much satisfaction 
to oneself. 

‘‘Have you decided yet whether to marry 
a fair-haired musician who will let you give 
concerts all the time in your own music room, 
or whether you will live alone, bob your hair, 
and produce an opera?” Philippa’s eyes were 
snapping with interest. She always enjoyed 
Virginia’s ‘ ‘ what-I ’ll - do - when -I-grow - up,” 
and often helped her with it. 

But Virginia had a new plan — to study 
music in Italy and marry an Italian count 

i6 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


who had been one of the Alpine engineers in 
the war and who lived in a villa in the midst 
of olive groves, with terraced formal gardens 
sloping down to a terazzio, Philippa luxur- 
iated in this while Anne returned vigorously 
to her knitting, inclined to be critical of the 
villa and to suggest that her mother had said 
one just froze in those foreign places, and that 
they never had bathrooms, and that Virginia 
needn’t think she was going to enjoy hearing 
the nightingales in her terraced gardens, 
because the malaria made it dangerous to 
remain out of doors after simset. 

Virginia at last subsided and looked into 
the red heart of the fire with dreamy eyes. 
But Philippa did not immediately take up the 
strain. 

“Well, Philippa?” Anne demanded at last. 
She was never quite sure that people could 
have a good time and still not talk. More- 
over, she was willing to have Philippa put 
forward some ideas which she could criticize. 

Philippa leaned forward and turned the log. 
Immediately flames shot up. 

“Somehow it seems to me that every time 
we start to talk about what we’re going to do, 
we just reel off things we’re going to have,'" 
she said, hesitatingly. “And after a while 
17 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


yotir mind gets all gummed up with sweet 
things, just the way you feel inside when 
you’ve had nothing much but candy at 
Christmas time. And it seems to me that 
things never seem to make as much real dif- 
ference as the people you’re with. Oh, I 
suppose I don’t quite know what I mean, 
myself. Only, we don’t seem to be able to 
imagine things that keep you interested. 
And yet — ^we’re always trying to.” 

” I can tell fortunes with cards,” Anne said, 
most unexpectedly. 

Both Philippa and Virginia turned and 
stared blankly at her. If the kitten, now 
curled up in an easy chair, sound asleep, had 
suddenly spoken to the effect that he could 
do mental arithmetic, they couldn’t have been 
more surprised. 

‘‘Yes I can, too. A friend of mother’s 
taught me yesterday. And you don’t have 
to imagine anything. It’s all in the way the 
cards fall. She told me — ” But Philippa 
was already rummaging in the drawer of the 
big library table. 

“Here they are.” She spread them excit- 
edly before Anne. “Do go ahead. It’s so 
much more fun to have something outside 
yourself tell you. I can’t wait.” 

i8 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

The cards were shufHed, cut, and dealt, 
again and again. The children watched with 
a nice creepy thrill running down their back- 
bones. 

You have had an illness.’’ 

‘‘I’ve never been ill in my life,” Philippa 
protested. She was much disappointed. It 
was so much fun to have that nice creepy 
feeling and believe. 

“Think,” said Anne, firmly. “It must be 
true. It’s in the cards. Haven’t you had 
the measles or something?” 

Philippa knitted her still childishly downy 
brows. It was so much more fun to believe 
than not to. “I think mother told me I had 
the mumps when I was a baby,” she said, 
finally. “But I don’t believe I was very 
sick.” 

“That’s it,” said Anne. “And you don’t 
know how ill you might have been if your 
mother hadn’t taken good care of you. 
Awful things can come from mumps.” 

“Still it doesn’t seem like an important 
enough illness to have the cards tell it,” Phil- 
ippa protested. But Anne went on. A gift 
was shown by the cards — and Philippa had 
just had a wrist watch for her thirteenth 
birthday. After that any skeptic would have 
19 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

been convinced. A journey over water and 
land—” 

Oh, I hope that means we are going to the 
Cove next summer!” 

‘‘I don’t quite understand about this dark 
man,” Anne said. Here he is again. He is 
in every hand.” 

hope I’m not going to have to marry 
him.” Philippa looked at the offensive card 
forbiddingly. '‘I don’t want to marry a 
dark man. I like blue eyes ever so much bet- 
ter. And then, everyone with brown eyes 
ought to marry some one with blue eyes.” 

^^No. You are not going to marry him. 
The cards don’t say that.” Anne spoke with 
the mystic authority of a sibyl. Maybe 
he’s an enemy lurking around — ” 

''Gosh! I didn’t know I had an enemy,” 
Philippa said, impressed in spite of herself. 
"Perhaps it’s — ” 

"No. I don’t believe he’s an enemy ex- 
actly. He always comes in connection with 
money.” 

"Perhaps he’s a birrglar!” Virginia’s usu- 
ally pale face was flushed with excitement. 
"And maybe Philippa will discover him and 
point her Anger at him and make him think 
it’s a pistol so he’ll back out of the door.” 

20 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘‘There’s nothing to show that he’s a 
burglar.” Anne’s tone was cold. It was not 
often that she had the two girls hanging on 
her words in this rapt manner, and she didn’t 
relish having this intrusion into her prophetic 
preserves. “It looks to me as if he were 
going to bring Philippa money.” 

She shuffled the cards and handed the pack 
to Philippa to cut. Then she dealt again, 
always in solemn silence. Philippa’s eyes 
were wide and bright. 

“There he is again,” Anne annoimced in 
triumph. “And— yes— with the money. Don’t 
bat your eyes, Philippa. Let’s try it again.” 

In awestruck silence the process was re- 
peated — There again was the dark man. 

“And there’s the money, too.” Anne 
now was excited. “Philippa, that dark man 
is certainly going to bring you a fortune in 
some way. You’re going to hear very soon 
about a fortune.” 

“‘Fortune’ — of course I’m going to have 
a fortune. There’s nothing new about that.” 
Whether Philippa was impatient with Anne’s 
appreciation of herself in the role of an oracle 
or not, the child had managed to blot from 
her face any evidence of excitement. She 
spoke with casual indifference. 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘^What do you mean? Has anybody died 
and left you something? ” Anne blinked with 
the suddenness of Philippa’s about-face. 

‘^No. Nobody’s died. But I’ve known 
for a long time that I was going to have one.” 

^‘But why didn’t you tell us?” The as- 
surance in the girl’s face and voice nonplussed 
the others. If she was joking, she was going 
dangerously near to telling a real lie. And 
Philippa had always been rather a fanatic 
about that, contending that it wasn’t right 
to assert what was true even on the ist of 
April. 

”Tell us who is the dark man, then,” 
Anne demanded, a little suspiciously. 

”I — don’t — know. That’s what I can’t 
understand. But it’s true about the fortime.” 

”Oh, tell us about it!” Anne and Vir- 
ginia spoke together, their voices shrill with 
excitement. 

”No. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I can 
tell you that yet,” Philippa said, seriously. 
”I don’t know all about it myself. And I 
can’t quite understand about the ^ dark 
man.’ I should think it would be more apt 
to be a fair one.” 


CHAPTER III 


^'XJiTHAT makes you so late? Have you 
VV seen Philippa?’’ Anne’s voice was 
more than a little sharp as she greeted Vir- 
ginia with these ' questions. 'H’ve been 
waiting out here at least a quarter of an 
hour. And it’s cold.” 

haven’t seen Philippa. And it wasn’t 
my fault. Miss Graham asked me to clean 
off the blackboards.” Virginia’s voice was 
anxiously apologetic. She always tried to 
excuse herself when anyone was out of pa- 
tience for any reason. 

The girls stood still at the point in the 
playground where they always met after 
school. It was a jolly playground with swings 
and parallel bars and all sorts of athletic ap- 
pliances. The Summit School was the pride 
of Clifton Park, a suburb of Washington, 
D. C. Most of the Parkites proved their be- 
lief in democratic education by sending their 
children to the public schools, loyally stand- 
ing by the teachers who, as one child after 
another of the various households in the 
23 


3 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

Park passed through their care, became val- 
ued and trusted family friends. Occasion- 
ally, it is true, it happened that some family 
deserted the belief of their ancestors and sent 
a child to a private school. But when that 
did occur it was apt to be not long before 
the absentee from the fold would reappear, 
a little shamefaced, but very glad to be back 
with the boys and girls she had grown up 
with. What was very unusual in so large a 
city, most of the householders in the Park 
were American-born and of American ances- 
try. Therefore among the professional men, 
scientists, specialists of various kinds, who 
made up the bulk of these, something of the 
fine old tradition of the New England or 
Western towns they had come from lingered, 
and the schoolhouse assumed the position 
that it had had everywhere in an earlier, 
simpler day. There were very few extremely 
wealthy Parkites and still fewer who could 
count themselves definitely poor. But there 
were no social distinctions drawn on that 
account; and there was surprisingly little 
snobbishness to harden the heart of the little 
rich girl or bring the tears of mortification to 
the eyes of her classmate from the smaller, 
less prosperous house. 

24 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


But to-day it was so cold in the playground 
that nobody lingered there, and it was lone- 
some as well as uncomforatble to be waiting 
there. Virginia’s blond face began to look 
blue and Anne’s nose was as red as her cheeks. 

‘'There she is!” Virginia called out at last, 
relief in her voice. Then her face fell. 
“Why! Who’s that with her? It’s a hoy. 
What in the world is Philippa walking with a 
boy for?” 

“If she’s going to bring him along, I’m 
going on without her.” 

Both girls waited stiffly until Philippa had 
come up to them. When they saw that she 
apparently had no intention of separating 
herself from Jeff Randolph, they turned on 
their heels and marched on ahead, their heads 
very high, their backs very unbending. 

Whether Philippa recognized their em- 
phatic disapproval or not, she made no sign. 
Her cheeks scarlet, her eyes bright, the curled 
ends of her brown bobbed hair shaking with 
every decided motion of her independent 
head, she walked briskly beside a peculiarly 
awkward and imgainly boy, whose dark-gray 
knickerbockers, a size too large and not 
tightly enough buckled about his thin legs, 
himg forlornly at about the most tmbeautiful 
25 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


angle at which a gaunt boy’s knickerbockers 
can well hang. 

Perhaps it was well that Philippa could not 
hear the conversation that went on ahead of 
her. Both the girls were very indignant. 
No crime in the calendar, apparently, could 
have been greater than this, no insult to them 
more barefaced. 

There were, of course, a few of the boys in 
their room at school of whom they did not 
disapprove so much as of some of the others. 
James Morgan was so funny he made even 
Miss Graham laugh when she was trying her 
best to be serious with him, and you couldn't 
help laughing at him at times, he said such 
perfectly ridiculous things — and then it light- 
ened an otherwise dull day. And Lawrence 
Tracy and Judson Welliver had put on long 
pants, so it made the girls feel a little — ^not 
impleasantly — self-conscious when they occa- 
sionally said a few words to them. There 
were some of the girls, too, who were ''mushy” 
and wrote notes to the boys in school. Anne 
and Virginia — yes, and Philippa, too — ^talked 
about it together, rather gravely and sorrow- 
fully, when they saw otherwise nice girls, 
whom they had always liked before, doing 
things like that. 


26 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


But Jeflf Randolph was not one of those 
exceptional boys. For one thing, he hadn’t 
lived in Clifton Park very long. The girls 
had been polite to him and offered to show 
him the place in the book the first days he was 
in school, but he had been so suUen and unre- 
sponsive-looking that they had decided he 
was one of the worst cases of boy in the school. 
Somehow — nobody could tell why imless it 
was because Lawrence Tracy had said he 
didn’t like him — ^Jeff became so generally 
impopular that he was usually left severely 
alone. So now, although Anne and Virginia 
would have thought it was bad enough to 
have Philippa walking home with any bo^ 
after school, when it was Jeff Randolph — still 
in short pants — ^they felt she had disgraced 
them all. They were glad that most of the 
girls had already gone home, but now and 
then they passed some one who looked in 
surprise at Philippa and Jeff and giggled. 
And since they couldn’t catch the eye of 
either of the absorbed pair, these girls said 
things to Anne and Virginia because the 
three were so inseparable that each of them 
was held more or less accountable for any- 
thing the others did — ^ 

'-'Well! Look at Philippa Gale. When 
27 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


did that begin? And Jeff Randolph! I 
should think if she was going to have a case 
on anyone she could find some one better 
than that. She must be hard up!” Anne 
and Virginia pretended not to hear these 
remarks, but their faces were scarlet. It was 
like a family disgrace. 

When they reached Philippa’s house, which 
was the first on their way home, they halted 
irresolutely. They had meant to go in, of 
course. But now things were different. 
They didn’t know how they ought to act until 
Jeff left. They had the constitution of their 
new club to talk about. Anne was the pres- 
ident, but Philippa was secretary, and she 
had said she would find out how you wrote 
constitutions and what they had in them. 
They stood stock-still at the place where the 
Gales’s walk turned off, feeling awkward and 
out of temper. 

Jeff did not go on! He turned into the 
walk with Philippa. Anne was too indignant 
to keep still or to be polite. 

‘‘Why, really, Philippa, I thought you 
were going to talk over the — You know 
what we were going to talk about.” 

Philippa faced her. Philippa’s cheeks were 
very red and her eyes were snapping with 
28 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


anger. But her tone was surprisingly gentle 
and she chose her words with great circum- 
spection: 

'*Yes, that is true, Anne. But Jeff is 
going to tell us about the way constitutions 
are written. He was secretary of a club out 
in Indiana. He has promised to write out a 
form for us to follow.” 

'^This is the first time that ever I knew it 
was right for anyone who wasn’t in a club to 
tell those who were in what to do! You’re 
not the president of this club, anyway; you’re 
only the secretary. I’m surprised at you, 
Philippa!” 

”But won’t you — ?” Philippa looked un- 
easily aside at Jeff and her tone was stiU 
carefully conciliating. 

''No, I won’t. It’s my club.” 

''I didn’t know being president of a club 
made you own it and all the members.” The 
battle spirit was stirring in Philippa. 

"Well, I’m not going to come in. And 
Virginia isn’t, either. We don’t like to play 
with boys.” 

"I’d like to know why not?” Philippa 
abandoned conciliation for direct attack. 
"When did boys get to be anything especially 
queer? We’ve known boys and gone to 

29 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


school with boys and played with boys all 
our lives. It strikes me you’ve got a brother, 
Anne, only he isn’t like Bayard — ^he’s too 
mean to pay any attention to you, and we 
used to play dolls with Virginia’s cousin. 
You act as if boys were strange wild animals !” 

She whisked her skirt decidely and turned 
her back on them. 

With her hand on the arm of the pale and 
wistful Virginia, Anne started down the street 
at a brisk pace. 

Philippa stood looking after them. If 
Anne had been there still she would have been 
sure to charge her with ''batting her eyes.” 
But the truth was Philippa was winking them 
hard to keep the tears back. It would have 
been hard to say whether she was more angry 
or more hurt. 

' ' I don’t think I’d better come in.” Jeff was 
imeasily scuffling holes in the neat gravel 
walk. He might have been sulky or merely 
embarrassed. Nobody could have told any- 
thing from his dark face. ' ' I got some things 
I want to do.” 

With a quick motion of her straight body 
and a flirt of the short skirts that was char- 
acteristic of Philippa, she tinned and led the 
way into the house. 


30 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘‘Oh, no! You promised to come in, 
you know. I’ve got to know how to write 
those constitution things now more than 
ever.” 

Jeff seemed to find as many difficulties of 
locomotion in getting into the reception room 
as if he were negotiating one of the most 
difficult passes of the snow-capped Sierras. 
His feet became entangled with door mats 
one and two, with the hall rugs, with the legs 
of two chairs and a table, before Philippa 
finally landed him on a seat by the desk. 
And all the time his dull, downcast face made 
him the last boy in the world you would have 
thought a girl of thirteen would have cared 
to bother with. 

That, at least, was what Mrs. Gale thought 
when, happening to come downstairs, she 
found the two children with their heads close 
together over the desk. Jeff started guiltily 
to his feet, his face crimson with embarrass- 
ment, his cap trodden underfoot. But Mrs. 
Gale greeted the boy with her usual pleasant 
hospitality. It was only when she said 
casually, on leaving the room, “Where are 
the girls?” — ^for any after-school that didn’t 
see the three together demanded explanation 
— and Phihppa answered, with elaborate 
31 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


lightness, ^'They just didn’t want to come 
in,” that the mother wondered. 

So when Doreen stopped at her door to find 
out, as always, whether ‘^mother was in,” the 
first instant on re-entering the house, Mrs. 
Gale, changing into the comfortable not- 
new-but-pretty dress that she kept for the 
usual family dinner, asked her elder daughter 
whether the boy_was_still downstairs with 
Philippa. 

''No. Not now,” Doreen said, her blue 
eyes laughing. ' ' When he saw me he jumped 
up and bolted out. Who is he, anyway?” 

"Just somebody. They seem to have 
something they are working out together.” 

''They were knee deep in rejected papers. 
I can’t say I admire Pip’s choice of a collab- 
orator.” 

That evening, when Philippa was dutifully 
studying her lessons in her room, Mr. Gale, 
after he had finished reading the paper and 
had filled his pipe, turned to his wife. 

"Well, what’s Pip’s latest?” he asked, with 
an expectant smile. His dynamic younger 
daughter was a constant joy to him. 

"An adorer, apparently,” Doreen answered 
laughing. ''And, oh, dad, such an adorer!” 

"I’d hate to have any of that nonsense,” 
32 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

Mrs. Dale said, with a qtiick frown. 'HVe 
always been so glad you and Bayard escaped 
any of the premature sweethearting. You 
were always so unconscious of it, Doreen, 
even in high school.” 

''That’s just because I never talk about 
things very much, ’ ’ Doreen laughed. ' ' I had 
a devastating romance when I was in Miss 
Graham’s room.” 

Father and mother turned on her in sur- 
prise and some consternation. 

"I never knew anything about that,” Mr. 
Gale said, evidently none too well pleased. 

"The adored one didn’t, either. It was a 
purely mental romance. I spent my time 
constructing dramas in which, under strangely 
dramatic circumstances, he discovered my 
true worth. I saw him at a dance last week 
and spent the evening trying to evade him. 
He has grown to be quite the fattest youth I 
ever saw.” 

"You don’t suppose this is one of Philippa’s 
lame ducks?” Mr. Gale’s voice softened ten- 
derly. He was recalling a long series of 
rescued animals. And he was picturing 
Philippa’s passionate despair when the kit- 
ten she had rescued at the cost of an ugly 
bite on her hand from a neighbor’s dog had, 
33 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


in tnm, when grown to the hunter stage, 
killed the cardinal that had just built his nest 
in the child’s bird house. 

^'But those have always been something 
small and weak and suffering,” Mrs. Gale 
said, slowly. ^‘There’s nothing of the lame 
duck about that boy.” 


CHAPTER IV 


K/\ may I have the first meeting 

i V 1 of the club at our house?'’ Philippa, 
eager and confident, stood at the door of her 
mother's room. 

In spite of preoccupation with a persistent 
pucker in the hem of a dress she was making 
for the child, Mrs. Gale smiled at the flushed 
and eager face. At the same time she sighed, 
a queer little sigh of complex origin. For the 
girl's enormous zest in things, her joyous 
sparkle of anticipation, made one wonder 
about the disappointments that might be in 
store for her. And Philippa was far from 
saintly in bearing disappointments. In fact, 
the whole family braced itself when they had 
foreknowledge that one was due. 

If this request couldn't be granted, for 
example, Mrs. Gale knew that that eager, 
rosy face would be instantly swallowed up in 
despair. Not one ray of light would penetrate 
the gloom and, alas! the rage at cruel fate. 
For at least five minutes tragedy would reign. 

35 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


As she thought this the mother sighed with 
relief because this time she wouldn’t have to 
portion out gloom. There was no earthly- 
reason why the club shouldn’t meet there. 

''Yes, indeed, dear. When do you meet?” 

"Friday night. And may we have the liv- 
ing room?” 

"Of course, dear. What kind of a club is 
it?” 

"We don’t know yet. We’ll decide that 
to-night. Anne wants it to be a 'do good’ 
club, and Virginia wants it to be a dramatic 
club that will study music and give operas, 
and one of the girls wants a debating society, 
and I think I want a stamp club because I 
like to think about going to different coun- 
tries and — ” 

"But I thought you were already at work 
on the constitution?” Mother was fighting 
to hide the smile that was hard to repress. 
"How could you make a constitution when 
you don’t know what your club is going to 
be?” 

"Oh! gosh, that’s easy.” 

"Philippa, please don’t say 'Gosh.’” 

"No’m, I won’t. Jeff showed me how to 
leave a blank for the kind of club. He says 
most of the constitutions are alike, an3rway. 

36 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

He brought me some books of things his 
father belongs to, and they are pretty much 
all alike, about officers and dues and things. 
And that’s what we want mostly — to have 
officers and meetings so people will want to 
come in and we can decide whether to let 
them in or not. Jeff says it doesn’t much 
matter, anyway, what kind of a club, I mean, 
because most of the time is taken up having 
fights about officers and the order of business. 
They never get around to do much beside 
that.” 

Mrs. Gale couldn’t hide the smile this time. 
Only, it was not the children that amused her, 
but the grown-ups. She wasn’t a very pa- 
tient clubwoman herself. 

''But how do you know that you are secre- 
tary and Anne president if you haven’t had 
your first meeting yet?” 

"Oh — that’s all right. We just decided 
that first. There’s a way to do it. You 
decide on your officers and then you call 
them — ^what’s that word ? — *pro tern,* And 
then usually the pro tern, people get made 
regular officers. That’s how this is going to 
be. Of course, I could have been president, 
but it seemed to me the cleverest person had 
to be secretary. Anne couldn’t possibly be 
37 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


secretary, but she can keep her face straighter 
than I can. And she likes to make people 
mind. I don’t. I’d rather have the fun of 
persuading them to do my way. The only 
trouble is, Virginia will have to be treasurer 
because that’s the only big office left, and 
she’s very poor at arithmetic. Never mind. 
I can keep the accounts for her, and she can 
copy them. She writes a good hand and 
makes nice curly figures.” 

”Anne and Virginia haven’t been here 
much lately, have they?” Mrs. Gale ventiured, 
cautiously. 

”No. They’ve been angry with me. 
Being angry’s a regular occupation with 
Anne; she spends lots of thought on it. But 
they made up in time for the club. They 
had to, of course, because some other girls 
are coming in and we couldn’t have things 
the way we want unless we three hang 
together.” 

” All right, Pip. You can have the room.” 

Mother, could we have some refresh- 
ments?” 

”If something simple will do. What do 
you want?” 

”Just cocoa and cookies or doughnuts. 
Just to have something^ 

38 


PHILIPPA'S FORTUNE 


‘*I’m wilKng, dear. If Doreen isn't going 
out she'll make the cocoa for you, I'm sure. 
And ask Mollie to see that there's a little 
heavy cream that you can whip." 

Thanks, muzz! Thanks ever so much! 
I'll go ask Doreen. I'm specially anxious 
to have refreshments because I'm afraid Anne 
and Virginia are going to get angry at me 
again." 

Philippa?" 

But the child was out of hearing. 

4 


CHAPTER V 


F riday evening Mr. and Mrs. Gale, 
banished to Mr. Gale’s little den upstairs, 
heard the girls tramping through the hall and 
into the living room. Good mother as Mrs. 
Gale was, she remembered ruefully that the 
floors had just been done over, and had a 
mental vision of the sadly marred and 
scratched spots, particularly where four girls 
would sit in a row on the long davenport. 
At the age at which they were, dainty feminine 
footwear would not be much in evidence. 

'' Isn’t that a boy’s voice?” Mr. Gale took 
the pipe out of his mouth to say. 

”It can’t be. This is just a girl’s club.” 
Involuntarily they listened. It was im- 
mistakably a boy’s voice. 

”It’s some mistake.” 

There was a momentary hubbub down- 
stairs, then a closed door and quiet. 

”I can’t understand what Philippa can be 
about. I don’t half — ” 

‘'Oh, the child’s all right. She just has 

40 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


some scheme in her head — mighty well worth 
knowing about if we are ever permitted. 
Listen!” 

A door downstairs was opened and a tumult 
of high girlish voices reached them. They 
could hear Anne’s loud and dominant, Vir- 
ginia’s excited treble, Philippa’s asserting it- 
self with an affect of great impatience and self- 
restraint. These three voices made their way 
against a background of indeterminate ones. 

Then the door shut again and there was 
silence. They heard Philippa come out into 
the hall below, speak a few words evidently to 
the boy waiting there. The front door 
opened and closed again. Philippa’s raised 
voice came to them again, distinct, scornful: 

''Now, I suppose you are all perfectly 
happy.” 

If they were happy, it was evidently felicity 
of a subdued type, for the babel of sound that 
usually marked the gatherings of Philippa’s 
clan was absent. Soon there was the clatter 
of dishes which told the elders that refresh- 
ments were in progress. The father and 
mother began to talk of other things. They 
had almost forgotten that there had been any 
special crisis in the career of their youngest 
until Philippa stood before them in person. 

41 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


There were no marks of conflict visible 
upon her. In fact, she looked distinctly 
exhilarated. Her mouth, perhaps, was a 
trifle compressed. To offset that, her eyes 
were joyously bright and her cheeks beau- 
tifully pink. 

^'Well, Pippa, what sort of an evening?” 
Father pulled her down on his lap and into 
his arms. 

” Mixed,” she replied, giving him rather an 
abstract hug. 

”What were you trying to do, anyway — 
get that boy into your club? I judge there 
was some opposition.” 

There was.” Philippa was smiling with 
reminiscent satisfaction. 

”Did you carry your point.” 

did not.” Her tone was singularly un- 
chastened. ” Nobody but myself was for him.” 

'"Did he want to come in?” 

*‘No, he just came because I told him to.” 

Mr. and Mrs. Gale exchanged puzzled 
glances. 

‘'Why did you want him in, dear?” Mrs. 
Gale couldn’t refrain from asking. 

”I just thought it would be a good thing,” 
replied the child with an inscrutable coimte- 
nance. 


42 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

‘‘Oh, well, we all have to give in to the will 
of the majority sometimes.” 

“Oh yes, I gave in for the present. But I 
haven’t given up for good. Of course I’ll 
get him in after a while.” 

“But, dear, why keep this up? Why 
should you be more apt to be successful later 
on than now?” 

“They’ll just get tired of opposing, because 
they haven’t any real reason. And my rea- 
son will be just as good later on as it is now.” 

The next instant Philippa had gone oflE 
into one of her ecstasies of laughter. 

“Oh, it was so fimny! There was Anne, 
being so dignified and respectable about hav- 
ing her own way” — followed an inimitable 
mimicry of Anne — “and Virginia, looking at 
Anne and looking at me and twittering like 
an anxious little canary and crying every 
little while” — ^Virginia was done to the life. 
“And all of them thinking they were giving 
arguments when they were just getting crosser 
and crosser. Every girl there got up and 
said just the same thing in different words, 
that she didn’t want Jeff in the club. There 
wasn’t a single real argument.” 

“Are you sure you had any real argu- 
ments?” Mr. Gale interposed, cturiously. 

43 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


think they were arguments.’’ 

‘‘Weren’t they just different ways of saying 
you thought it would be pleasant to have Jeff 
in the club?” Mr. Gale was smiling. 

“Good gracious, no! I think we’d have a 
whole lot better time if we didn’t have him. 
But I could see three good reasons for having 
him all the same. Here are the ones I wrote 
down: (i)Boys look at things in a different 
way from girls, so we’ll learn more if we have 
both sides. (2) Boys know more about 
arguing than girls, and we ought to know how 
to advance real arguments instead of just 
gabbling. (3) Jeff knows a lot about what 
they call ‘parliamentary law’ — ^how to run 
clubs, you know.” Philippa folded up her 
piece of paper and put it carefully away in 
her pocket. “Then I did have another 
reason, but I didn’t give it.” 

“Why not?” 

“Oh, I just thought that it wouldn’t be — 
that I’d better say it.” 

“Well, run away to bed; you’ve lost lots of 
sleep as it is.” 

Philippa went rather reluctantly to the 
door. 

“I always do have to go to bed just when 
things get interesting,” she said, a little rebel- 
44 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


liously. Then she turned to them again. 
'‘Oh, it was fun to see them all say and do 
just what you knew they would do — as if it 
were a play you knew and they had learned 
the lines perfectly. It was a splendid fight!” 
— ^with an ecstatic giggle. "You’ll come and 
tuck me in bed, muzz?” 

When her sparkling face was gone the 
father and mother turned to each other. 
Then a shade of anxiety crossed Mrs. Gale’s 
face. 

"Sometimes I’m almost frightened at the 
child’s intensity of feeling,” she said. " She’s 
always tremendously up or frightfully down.” 

"I’d be bothered if she didn’t have that 
clear, impersonal view of things,” Mr. Gale 
said, "and her delicious sense of fim — she can 
laugh at herself, too, occasionally. I tell you 
she’s not going to be any ordinary personality, 
that child.” 

"We’ve said that about each of the children 
in turn, you know.” 

"Yes, with reason, ” he persisted, although 
they both had to laugh at their own fond folly. 
"But I tell you, when you get a woman that 
can feel like a woman and think like a man, 
you’ve a combination that is well worth 
watching. It’s because there are some like 
45 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


that that some ‘interests’ we know of are 
afraid of the woman vote. The other kind 
they conld manage well enough. It’s going 
to be great fun watching Philippa every step 
of the way.” 

“I wonder why she wants that boy in the 
club,” said Mrs. Gale, musingly. “What I’d 
like to know is the reason she didn’t give.” 


CHAPTER VI 


L ooking back, that club night seemed the 
^ last time she saw the joyous brightness 
on Philippa's face for many days. She came 
home from school the next day in one of the 
darkest of her dark moods. Philippa's dark 
moods meant a sad, sad face, dramatic sighs 
on all occasions calling for emotion of any 
kind, words of self-denying courtesy greeting 
any request, and a general display of world- 
weary patience which reduced everyone in 
her vicinity to impotent despair. A royal 
rage on Philippa's part was to the irrespon- 
sible onlooker something of a treat because of 
the pictorial quality of briUiant eyes, storm- 
ily knitted brows, and splendidly flushed 
cheeks — all, happily, speedily, over. But her 
moods of depression were regarded as an un- 
mitigated trial by every one in the family. 
Sympathy was worse than useless, expostu- 
lation, reasoning, merely made her worse. 
The only thing apparent that could dis- 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


lodge the child from her mood was the inde- 
pendent resolution of Philippa herself. 

And this time it seemed that that would 
never come. 

She led the life of a recluse, coming, imac- 
companied, straight home after school or 
going off by herself on solitary walks. 
Neither Anne nor Virginia ever came home 
from school with her, nor did she go to their 
houses. When the first Friday afternoon 
after the stormy club meeting came Mrs. 
Gale, really distressed, tried to find out what 
was the matter. 

Wouldn’t you like to try some other 
candy than fudge this evening?” she asked. 
'"If you do, just — ” 

I’ll make fudge for you and Doreen if you 
like,” Philippa said, with a martyred sigh. 
‘'But there won’t be anyone else here.” 

“Not Anne and Virginia?” 

“No.” That word was all for some time. 
Then she blurted out, “They’re angry with 
me again.” 

“What’s the matter?” 

“The club. Anne doesn’t like some of^the 
things I said. She wants to run things, and 
it makes her mad if I do, too.” 

“And Virginia?” 


48 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


''Anne’s got hold of her and won’t let her 
come.” 

"I think that is too bad of Anne.” The ^ 
distress of her yoimgest was too much for 
Mrs. Gale’s common sense. "Let me have 
a talk with Anne. She has no right to ride 
roughshod over you in this way.” 

"No, mother. Please don’t. I think I’d 
better fight my battles myself.” 

Back of Philippa’s effort at self-control was 
a sore heart. The self-respect she had shown 
brought forth involuntary respect from the 
mother, also sympathy. 

"Now, Philippa,” she said, "you know 
that Anne can’t help wanting to boss things. 
And you know that every little while some- 
thing will come along that you will want to 
have your own way about. So collisions are 
inevitable if you are both in any organization 
that you both have decided ideas about. 
You are destined to be in hot water all the 
time. So why don’t you just be sensible and 
resign from the club? Then you can enjoy 
your real friendship with Anne without the 
danger of these quarrels.” 

But Philippa, sitting up very straight, was 
regarding her mother with a face of aston- 
ished disapproval. 


49 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


** Mother!” she said, accusingly, ^^did you 
want to resign from the Board that time it was 
under fire?'' 

Mrs. Gale couldn’t help wincing at this 
direct attack. She had to admit that the 
child’s retort was entirely justifiable. She 
had used the very words that Philippa had 
just discharged at her in discussing some- 
thing that had happened to one of their 
friends. She said: 

^'Yes, dear. Now that you put it that 
way I can see you are quite right. I am 
afraid I didn’t realize how seriously you felt 
about it. Of course, one can never desert a 
cause one believes in.” 

When Saturday came without any of the 
eagerly planned games or hikes that the three 
girls so loved, no chestnuting when the burrs 
opened, no jolly talks by the wood fire, Phil- 
ippa could no longer hide from her mother 
the fact that she was really unhappy. 

''I’d like to shake those girls,” Mrs. Gale 
said, viciously, to her husband when the long 
day was over and her child safely asleep in a 
moonlit room. 

"Steady, girl,” her husband said, reaching 
out and patting her hand soothingly. "This 
is one of the times when we just have to sit 
50 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


back on the side lines and watch. We can 
root hard for onr side, though,” he qualified 
his statement, laughing. “And now I want 
to tell you what Dubois of Minnesota said to 
me to-day. It really looks pretty favorable 
to me. As far as I can see, this is the way 
the committee is divided.” 


CHAPTER VII 


P hilippa, contentedly munching a large 
wedge of cake in the kitchen, was engag- 
ing Mollie in conversation relative to Thanks- 
giving preparations. It was inevitable al- 
ways that some special season or occasion 
should be the center of Philippa’s imaginative 
revels. Since this was the second week in 
November and there was a fine wintry tang 
in the air, it was only natural that Philippa’s 
mind shoiild turn to Thanksgiving. 

smell something spicy,” she said, sniff- 
ing the air. ^ ^ Like fruit cake or mincemeat . ’ ’ 
' ‘ Shure it’s mincemate it is. ” Mollie smiled 
broadly. “It’s the cake I’ll make to-morry.” 

“Let me see the mincemeat, Mollie, won’t 
you?” 

Mollie jerked her head toward the jar that 
was standing on a table by the window. 

“Let me taste it, won’t you?” 

“ Yez ’ll not foind it the way it used to taste. 
Shure it’s big business kapin’ a bit av th’ 
52 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


crayther from the mince poi and the loikes 
av thot!” Mollie sniffed rebelliously. 

Philippa tasted the mincemeat. 

think it’s as good as it ever was, 
Mollie,” she said, loyally. *'And it hasn’t 
any of that burny feeling in your throat it 
used to have. And, anyway, Mollie, you 
could make things good if you had hardly 
anything to make them good with.” 

Yez do have th’ gift of smoothin’ a body 
down, Miss Philippy, I’ll say thot for yez. 
Ye hand it out loike as if yez came from th’ 
ould counthry and had kissed th’ Blarney 
stone. And oi’ll say oi did put double of 
raisins and currants in it. An’ oi’m trustin’ 
to thot an’ th’ apples settin’ up a little Shinn 
Fein av its own. Oi’ve heard av th’ loikes 
av thot.” Mollie’s rougish twinkle was good 
fun to see. 

^'Oh, Mollie, isn’t it going to be fim?” 
Philippa’s eyes began to sparkle and her 
cheeks to glow with the excitement of the 
picture she was conjuring up. '' Little Broth- 
er will be home” — ‘'Little Brother” was her 
name for Bayard, just precisely because he 
was six feet one and the biggest and oldest 
and strongest of the three. "And maybe 
mother ’D let Doreen and me go down to the 
53 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


station to meet him if it isn’t too late. And 
we’ll stand at the gate and watch the people 
getting off the train, ’n’ everybody ’ll be jolly 
and smiling and carrying suitcases ’cause 
they’re going home to spend Thanksgiving. 
And they’ll be selling bunches of red berry 
sprays on the street — not holly and mistletoe 
yet, of course, but just beginning to make you 
think of Christmas. That’s why Thanks- 
giving is so ’specially jolly — because Christ- 
mas is still ahead. And then when we get Bay- 
ard home, mother ’n’ father ’n’ everybody ’ll 
sit all together and talk and laugh. Oh, we do 
have such good times just talking and laugh- 
ing! And Bayard will tell us all about foot- 
ball and the fellows. I like Lawrence Gard- 
ner best of the fellows, and I think Doreen 
does, too. And there’ll be the next day ahead 
with the cranberry jelly and crisp celery and 
everything good. And great big brown Mr. 
Ttirkey and the luscious dressing you make. 
I can hardly wait! And then there’ll be 
mince pies and ice cream and nuts and raisins 
and jokes and everybody feeling so happy. 
And telling stories around the fire afterward. 
Oh, Mollie, I just can’t wait! I just can’t 
wait!” 

Mollie looked at her with some envy and a 
54 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


little shadow in her blue Irish eyes, but with 
entire comprehension. 

''Shure, child, it’s grand to feel that way, 
and oi pray the saints that there’ll nothing 
happen to spoil th’ day — or anny other day 
that makes y’r eyes shine loike thot. And 
now. Miss Philippy, av yez plase, oi’d thank 
yez to give me th’ loan av my own kitchen. 
For it’s behind toime I am with dinner an’ 
it’s y’rsilf that’s hinderin’ me.” 

^'All right, I will. But who is shaking 
feather dusters out of the window? It can’t 
be — oh, Mollie, it can’t be snow!'' The 
ecstasy in Philippa’s voice was indescribable. 
Mollie gave an alarmed glance out of the 
window. 

'^Shure oi’m afraid yez will be tellin’ the 
truth,” she said, glumly. “And a foine time 
oi’ll have gettin’ to mass th’ mornin’.” 

Philippa was too happy to notice Mollie’s 
ingratitude. The curious attitude of grown- 
ups toward snow was always a puzzle for her. 
Even mother wasn’t properly grateful some- 
times. She seemed to think that wet shoes 
and stockings and little puddles of water on 
the floor where you left your rubbers really 
mattered. And Philippa, who could never 
be completely happy if she didn’t think the 
5 55 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


people about her felt the same way, was 
always trying to find out if their opinion of 
snow hadn’t changed since the last time they 
talked about it. 

The child glued her face to the window pane. 

‘'Oh, it’s lying on the ground; it’s a real 
snow! We’ll have coasting and snowball- 
ing. And we don’t usually have them for a 
month — and sometimes ' not at all. There 
wasn’t the least bit of coasting last winter. 
Oh, I’m sure it’s going to be an old-fashioned 
kind of winter, like the ones mother and 
father had when they were children up in 
New England. And it makes it seem as if 
Thanksgiving would come right away, and 
Christmas, too. Don’t you think we are 
going to have coasting, Mollie. Look! The 
ground is getting white already.” 

But Mollie refused to be of her way of 
thinking. 

" It ’ll stay just long enough to be slush and 
then mud. And then yez ’ll catch a foine 
cold.” 

But Philippa was out of the room. She 
could not stay in such an uncongenial atmos- 
phere. But she found an utterly empty 
house. Mother was out doing the Saturday 
marketing and Doreen hadn’t come home 
S6 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


yet. Ordinarily she would have called up 
Anne and Virginia. If it had been she that 
were angry with them she would do it now; 
but they were angry with her, so she couldn’t. 
Maybe one of them would call. She hung 
around a long time near the phone where she 
could hear the first vibration. 

None came. The air was thicker and 
thicker with the white, twisting, feathery 
flakes. There was a steady purposefulness 
in the way they came. The ground was 
already covered. The telephone didn’t ring. 
There never had been, so far as she could 
remember, a Saturday or Sunday snow be- 
fore, when she and Anne and Virginia had 
not been getting ready to go out in it by this 
time. Her throat felt choked up. Her hand 
went out toward the telephone, but she took 
it back resolutely. The house was very silent. 
Even the living room seemed lonesome. She 
watched until there was a thick carpet over 
everything; the boughs of the trees, twigs 
even, were being outlined in white. She tried 
to forget her loneliness in a book. She didn’t 
look at the snow for an hour. 

Voices began to ring out from the street. 
The living room windows overhung a tiny 
valley with Klingle brook at the bottom of 
57 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


it; she couldn’t see the street from there. 
She flew to the front of the house. There 
they were with their sleds, several of the girls 
she knew, and the boys. There — yes, that 
was Anne! And Virginia with her. They 
had Anne’s brother’s bobsled. Perhaps 
they were going to stop for her. Philippa 
darted out into the hall to get ready. She 
foimd her rubbers and got them on. Then 
she waited. They didn’t stop. She heard 
their voices as they went on. 

The tears began to come into Philippa’s 
eyes. Then she straightened herself and 
switched her skirts with decision. Anyone 
who saw her at that moment would have been 
delighted with the fine, healthy color in her 
cheeks. 

'‘They needn’t think they are going to keep 
me in,” she said to herself, with a toss of her 
head. 

Up into the attic she went. It was a cozy, 
comfortable attic that extended over most of 
the house. The baby-soft fingers of the 
snow were tapping daintily against the two 
little windows tucked under the sloping eaves. 

‘‘I don’t think Bayard took his bob away 
to college with him,” she was thinking. “Oh, 
I hope it is here!” 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

It was there, in a comer with a pile of old 
school books on top of it. It took only a 
moment to get it out and dust it with an old 
dress that hung on the wall (let’s hope it 
wasn’t something that Mrs. Gale wanted to 
use). She got the big thing downstairs her- 
self until Mollie, hearing something bumping 
down the second flight, came out and helped 
her with it. Then, after a pause to get on 
leggings and woolen bloomers and heavy cap 
and sweater, PhiHppa was out on the snowy 
street. 

It seemed so strange to be out alone, so 
lonely with the fast-falling snow making a 
veil that divided her from groups of other 
children, that, for a moment, she wished she 
hadn’t come. But it never occurred to her 
to turn back. Now and then one of the 
children recognized her and called to her 
through the snow-laden air. 

''Anne and Virginia are on ahead,” Ger- 
trude Tracy shouted. 

"AU right. I know,” Philippa answered. 
She was not going to let anyone know that 
Anne and Virginia were angry with her. 
She felt a twinge of pain, all the same. This 
wonderful Saturday snow would have been so 
different if they had all been together. 

59 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

She trudged on. The hill began to be 
steep. It was a steady climb for almost half 
a mile. Philippa remembered from two years 
before that there was one place, about half- 
way up, where you always told yourself that, 
once you were down, nothing would persuade 
you to climb up again. But the wild swoop 
down which made you feel as if your heart 
had dropped clean out of your body was so 
wonderful that your one idea was to get to the 
top again. 

*^But I wonder if there is any coasting. 
Isn’t the snow too light to pack?” she won- 
dered. As if in answer a sled whizzed past 
her. She had to jump out of the way. It was 
Anne’s brother’s sled, not nearly so good as 
the one Bayard had made from two small 
coasters connected by a stout oak plank. 
The Gale bobsled was noted. Resolutely 
Philippa climbed on up the hill. 

Five or six sleds passed her. She recog- 
nized Lawrence Tracy’s big bob with James 
Morgan and Alice Morgan and the two 
Henderson girls, and a big boy who didn’t 
live in the Park, Philippa was siure. They 
were all cheering as they passed. Then the 
Welliver bob and two or three small sleds, one 
of them with someone who looked like Jeff 

6o 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Randolph, stretched out flat upon it. Phil- 
ippa almost disliked Jeff at that moment. 
She was sorry she had ever tried to get him 
into the club, since it had made all this trouble. 
But, having started the thing, she had to go 
on with it. She was as lonely, with the snow 
falUng fast around her and the shouts of glad 
excitement coming from each coasting party 
that tore past her, as though she were really 
alone in the world. 

By the time she reached the top of the hill 
her feet were beginning to be very cold. She 
looked back. The Clifton Park hill was, on 
the rare occasions when Washington had a 
real snow, a really wonderful coast. It was 
a straight fall, with no twists to make it 
dangerous, no car track, and a long level at 
the bottom, so it was easy to slow up before 
one reached the cartrack and thoroughfare 
for whizzing motors that crossed it at right 
angles. Apart from an occasional motor 
going their way — which often good-naturedly 
gave them a tow up the hill, or one coming 
up behind them — there was no danger except 
the slight one of running into one^another. 
In short, it was an unusual combination for 
the city of an exciting coast with a fairly safe 
one. And everyone from far and near 

6i 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


thronged there whenever word went forth 
that sport was to be had. One coiildn’t 
afford to wait until the snow stopped falling. 
For when that happened it was more than 
possible the Washington climate would see 
to it that you dragged your sled home over 
the bare ground. 

The scene that filled Philippa’s eyes was a 
beautiful one. For a long way there were no 
houses. On either side of the road stretched 
what seemed like the forest, but were really 
the parks of two big estates. The evergreen 
trees and the graceful tracery of bare tapering 
limbs were covered with the softest, whitest 
puffs of snow; whiteness broken by white- 
etched shrubs swept and billowed up to the 
top of the gentle slopes. Beyond, the hill 
descended, divided by the hardly perceptible 
depression of the road and with an occasional 
white-roofed house on either side; all along 
the road were the moving groups of the girls 
and boys she knew dragging their sleds up 
the long climb. 

For a moment she was as alone as if there 
were no one within miles of her — ^more alone, 
since the faint noise of talk and laughter that 
floated up to her merely reminded her that 
she was companionless. So, when a voice 

62 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


spoke from behind, she jumped in nervous- 
ness that was almost fright. 

a truth,” the voice said, ”it ees a cur-r 
rious espece of — ^what ees traineau call eetself 
in these country?” 

^'Sled,” said another voice, a childish one 
with a distinctly patronizing intonation. 


CHAPTER VIII 


P hilippa turned, she recognized little 
French Jean who, to the great entertain- 
ment of the fourth grade, had entered the 
Clifton Park school at the beginning of the 
term. But the really gorgeous figure beside 
him she had never seen before. 

He wore a wonderfully fitting uniform of 
the ^'horizon blue” which Philippa, in com- 
mon with every other child in the capital of 
the United States, had grown to associate 
with the French army. But while it seemed 
natural to see any number of different kinds 
of uniform downtown, or where the legations 
dotted the fashionable part of the city, it was 
startling to see gorgeousness here, on a man 
whose Sam Brown belt accentuated slender 
waist and broad shoulders, whose high rank 
was revealed by the elaborate braiding on the 
red top of his cap and by the gilt insignia at 
collar and shoulders. And, rising from the 
snow, the brilliantly polished tan boots looked 
highly unnatural. 


64 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


The really extraordinary thing, however, 
was that all this glory was worn by a man 
whose bright brown eyes laughed merrily 
into hers, and whose white teeth gleamed in a 
smile of almost boyish friendliness. He went 
on with his query about the sled quite as 
though he had been in daily familiar con- 
versation with Philippa all of his life. 

Perhaps thees leetle — ^but, no, I cannot 
call her ‘mademoiselle’” — 

“Her name is Philippa Gale, and she is in 
the eight grade,” put in the black-eyed 
Jean, a pleasing respect for the eighth grade 
in his voice. 

“My son, he know so moche bettair these 
tout- a-f ait Americainy Here the gentleman 
laughed merrily. “If I could only at-tend 
the four-r-rth grade of the pub-lic school of 
the Clifton Par-r-rk I should know almost as 
moche as le petit Jean. But perhaps Mees 
Phileeppa will tell me of what espece is these 
sled? And for why there are two and why 
joined togethair. But, yes, I begin to see. 
Eet is that more may ride, and the leetle sled 
of the front is not fastened but with these 
pivot so it may turn.” 

“I wish I had one,” said little Jean, 
gloomily. 


65 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘‘Where is it that one may be bought?” 
asked Monsieur d’Aillebout. Philippa was 
sure this must be the French officer who, 
with his wife and children, had leased the 
Cunningham place at her left soon after the 
signing of the armistice. The carpet of snow 
had made their approach noiseless. 

“My brother Bayard made this,” she ex- 
plained. “I don’t know whether you can buy 
them or not. The boys out here make 
theirs.” 

“There is some more American — ^what you 
call it? — ‘smartness’ for you to learn, Jean,” 
his father laughed. 

“I wish I had one now,^'' said little Jean, 
who, for all his progressive ways, was, after 
all, only nine years old. And his lips puck- 
ered as if he were going to try. 

“I’ll take him down,” Philippa said, 
eagerly. “Only, I’m afraid it’s too big for 
me to manage alone. I can guide it, but 
there ought to be a big boy at the back to 
use his foot for a brake. We’ll have to wait.” 

“But for why cannot I not serve? I have 
steered many things — ^horses — ^men — ^auto- 
mobiles — ^boats. I know to skate, to ski in 
Switzerland. Of a truth, I should guide 
these — what is his name?” 

66 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘^Bobsled.” 

**Bon! Emharque! Get on the bobsled/ 
Jean. And let us thank Mees Phileeppa.” 

But Jean was so far Americanized that he 
forgot to thank Philippa. He scrambled on 
the sled back of her, in a solemn rapture, ad- 
justed himself, and clung like a limpet to the 
sides. Monsieur le colonel d’Aillebout pulled 
his cap more firmly down on his head and 
half sat, half kneeled at the back, one beau- 
tifully polished boot out in the snow. By 
this time Anne and Virginia had reached the 
top of the hill with the two boys and one 
girl of their party. Quite a little crowd 
gazed at them in amazement. 

'' Avancez!'" called out Monsieur d’Aille- 
bout gayly and waved his hand to the on- 
lookers as he pushed off. 

The snow had stopped and they could see 
clearly the white world that stretched out 
under them. The slope was moderate at 
first and they skimmed gently along. But in 
a minute they came to a steep decline; so, 
in spite of the fact that the snow was loose 
and light as yet, the pace became more and 
more fast. At last came that breathless 
drop, terrifying but exhilarating, which was 
worth all the rest of it put together. Phi- 
67 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


lippa was tense with exultation; little Jean 
squealed with delight; M. d’Aillebout burst 
into a ringing cheer. The next instant they 
were sliding sedately along the level. 

As she turned to climb the hill again 
Philippa expected, of course, that the French 
officer and his son would go on toward the 
street cars and downtown. But, instead, 
M. d’Aillebout took the rope from her and 
started back with her. After the first sur- 
prise it seemed quite the natural thing that 
this should be so. He chatted with her in 
his only occasionally unintelligible English 
as companionably as one of her own age 
would have done. There was no doubt that 
he was thoroughly enjoying himself. His eyes 
sparkled gayly; his white teeth flashed in an 
almost continual smile beneath the jaimty 
little black mustache; the little Jean was 
quite venerable, apparently, beside his father. 
When they got to the top of the hill, other 
boys and girls had come; several sledless 
ones hung about, looking wishful. 

Don’t you want to go down?” Philippa 
asked of a girl who was a stranger to her. 

While the girl was taking her seat M. d’Ail- 
lebout said, low in Philippa’s ear, '‘I am so 
glad that you saw that one. I do not think 
68 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

I could bear that a child should be disap- 
pointed.” Philippa looked up at him. Some- 
thing in his voice seemed strange to her. 
His face was quite sad. *^In this war so 
many children have suffered.” He was 
silent for a moment. Then: ''And that 
leetle boy, n'est ce pas? He does not look 
to have a — ^what you call him? — a. bobsled? ” 

After that, it seemed only natural that the 
five of them should coast together all the 
afternoon. 

The two strange children whom they knew 
as Bettie and Tom were jolly. Theirs was 
the gayest party on the hill. The French 
officer kept them laughing all the time. His 
very mistakes in English were funny; he 
enjoyed them as much as they did. He was 
untiring; the joy of the descent was always 
new to him; the tedium of the climb they 
forgot because he told them funny stories 
all the way. Philippa would have been per- 
fectly happy if it had not been for Anne and 
Virginia, whom they passed constantly. Anne 
acted as if Philippa were not there at all. 
Once or twice Philippa met Virginia’s eyes 
and Virginia smiled at her timidly. She 
looked at M. d’Aillebout, too, as though she 
would like to meet him. But when Anne 

69 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

was looking, she was afraid to notice Philippa 
at all. 

‘‘It’s so silly!'' Philippa stormed to her- 
self. “Anne seems to get as much enjoy- 
ment out of being angry as I do out of a good 
story.” Jeff, too, held aloof. “That’s just 
because he’s bashful,” Philippa thought. 
And that didn’t hurt her at all. But every 
little while the thought of Anne and Virginia 
came to her with a little pang. 

“Thees must be the last voyage,” M. 
d’Aillebout said at last, after a hurried glance 
at his wristwatch. “We must make eet the 
best of them all.” 

“Oh no! Please don’t go!” went up in a 
chorus from the children. 

M. le colonel took off his hat and bowed 
low with a great flourish. 

“My thanks to you for that you want me 
to r-r-remain,” he said, smiling boyishly. 
“There is everywhere the friendship between 
my country and thees country. It is the one 
good gift of the war.” His face clouded, 
though he made a visible effort to throw off 
sad thoughts. “But, voyonSy this will nevair 
do. We must play. It ees good to play; it 
makes woimds to heal.” 

“ But you don’t really have to go, do you? ” 
70 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Philippa coaxed. The thought of his going 
made her feel lonesome again. 

It is to regret that I must. I have played. 
Now I must work. Two gentlemen await me 
at the Embassy who now are not of the good 
humor. And le petit Jean he will perish 
from the earth if I do not buy for heem a — 
what you call heem — ?” 

Baseball bat,” annoimced Jean, with 
prompt exactitude. 

^*Yes — that thing he have name he must 
have. He is so Americain^ le petit Jean^ that 
he is of the baseball horses — ” 

^'Team,” corrected Jean, with patient 
superiority. 

'^^Team?’ But I thought — oh, well, it is 
nothing. Now we will embark omselves. 
It should be the best chute yet. The snow it 
ees hard packed. How Mees Phileeppa would 
like to ski in the Alps?” 

'‘I’m going to sometime,” Philippa said, 
with crisp finality. 

“I do not myself doubt that you will do it. 
It is in the air of thees coimtry to make 
accomplishment of what you desire. It 
make Jean to be of the baseball hor — team 
of which the capitaine is the son of a boche, 
Nevair have I think that my son shall be a 
6 71 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


friend of the son of a hoche. But m thees 
country it happen because that son of a boche 
is an American. But now we go. Zut ! ” 

They were off. Almost from the first the 
motion was rapid enough to take then- 
breaths away; the track was now hard and 
firm. In a second, it seemed, they caught up 
with Anne’s brother’s bob ; passed it. They 
cheered. 

knew our bob was faster,” gasped 
Philippa. ‘ ‘ Perhaps Anne — ’ ’ 

She never finished her sentence. Some- 
thing was happening. She felt it in the 
tense air. Just as they took the plimge 
down the steepest part of the slide they 
heard a motor horn shriek agonizingly. 
Something shot out from behind them and 
crashed against a tree on the other side of 
the road. M. d’Aillebout slowed them up 
and Philippa automatically steered for their 
side of the road out of the traffic. Before 
she had got to her feet, it seemed, the French 
officer was across the road where a bob — 
Axme’s bob — had overturned and spilled its 
occupants. But as she looked they — all of 
them — ^were stirring. 

'‘No wounded, I think,” called out M. 
d’Aillebout. 


72 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

Philippa looked beyond the bob to the 
other side of the road. It was a small sled. 
There was one figure lying beside it. And 
that figure had not moved. 

''Oh, somebody’s hurt! somebody’s hurt!” 
she called out and ran across. Almost as 
soon as she got there M. d’Aillebout was 
beside her. 

"It’s Jeff Randolph,” she panted. "Oh, 
do you think he is badly hurt?” 

"I think it may be only that he is stunned,” 
the French officer said with a cheerful voice. 

But his face was very serious. He caught 
up a little snow and pressed it on the boy’s 
forehead. But there was no sign of life. 
A man from the automobile joined them, 
and one of the ladies. Anne was brushing 
the snow vigorously from her shoulders and 
skirts, and stamping. She pointedly did not 
look their way, although her companions 
were. She had the mad look in its most ex- 
treme form on her face. 

"How can she?” Philippa thought. 

"I hope the boy isn’t injured seriously,” 
said the gentleman from the automobile. 
"I’m afraid we put him in a tight place. We 
tried to slow up, but our brakes wouldn’t 
work, so he had to get out of otu: way. He 
73 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


evidently tried to prevent a collision with 
you.” The man was speaking to M. d’Aille- 
bout. Then he realized the danger of collid- 
ing with the other sled. He almost cleared it ; 
just grazed them. But he smashed up himself. ’ ’ 

They watched anxiously while M. d’Aille- 
bout dabbled some more snow in his face. 
After what seemed to Philippa an age his 
eyelids twitched. Suddenly he opened his 
eyes. They were uncomprehending, blank. 
He didn’t seem even curious. He tried to 
turn himself; winced. Then he closed his 
eyes again. 

‘'The sooner we get heem to his home and 
call a doctor the bettair it will be for heem,” 
said the Frenchman. “Do you know where 
is his home?” he asked Philippa. 

She gave the street and number. 

“I know the Park. I’ll take him home,” 
said the man. 

“And I will go with heem and do what 
may be done imtil the coming of the phy- 
sician. I naturellement have of the experi- 
ence. I will not hurt our wounded one. 
But some one shorJd call the physician tout 
de suite — immediately.” 

“ My house is nearest. I’ll telephone them 
to call a doctor, ’ ’ Philippa said, quickly. ‘ ‘ But 
74 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


do you think he is badly hurt?” She spoke 
in a responsible, elderly sort of way. But the 
French officer saw that her lips were quivering 
childishly. His tone took on the tenderness 
it always held for the troubles of children. 

** He is dazed yet from the shock,” he said, 
think that may be all, although it may be 
that there is some hurt. If you will let me 
know the telephone number of your house I 
will speak to you after the doctor has been 
with him.” 

Soberly Philippa turned to go. Anne’s 
voice came to them: 

*^I don’t care if he did get upset. He did 
his best to upset us, the mean thing! I 
never did like him and he’s trying to get 
even with me because — ” 

M. d’Aillebout tinned to Philippa. 

''That is a foolish child,” he said, im- 
patiently. "The boy ran the risk of hurting 
himself that he might not hurt anyone else. 
He acted en bon soldat. I mean he acted as 
a soldier should have done, in the spirit of 
those brave boys who fought by our side so 
few of months ago. It was a gallant action. 
That, my Jean, is to be truly American. If 
you copy that as well as throwing of the ball 
you do well.” 


CHAPTER IX 


“AS is very apt to be the case, the days 
Ix following the great Saturday snow were 
very dull indeed. True, the elders of the 
Gale family had taken the matter of Jeff 
Randolph’s accident quite out of her hands; 
nevertheless, Philippa went every day to see 
how Jeff was. Mrs. ^Gale, who was home 
when her youngest came panting in, tele- 
phoned the Randolph house and was later 
told by a maid that Mr. Randolph had been 
notified ; that the doctor had got there within 
fifteen minutes; that the French gentleman 
had remained with the boy until both Mr. 
Randolph and the doctor had reached the 
bedside; that Jeff was conscious, in some 
pain; and that they did not yet know how 
seriously he had been hurt. 

There seemed to be nothing that Philippa 
could do. Moreover, the snow melted the 
next day and there was no more coasting. 

“Just what you might expect of the old 
Washington weather,” Philippa said to her- 
76 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


self, in a general state of supreme displeasiire 
with her lot. She knew she was puzzling 
everyone in the household, and that her 
mother was really bothered to see her at 
such loose ends. Nobody questioned her, 
however; it was a Gale theory that every 
member of a family had a right to some re- 
serves. Philippa knew that she ought to 
shake herself out of her mood. But she 
couldn’t. She was lonesome at home and^ 
she hated to go to school, knowing that she 
would have to see Anne and Virginia chum- 
ming together and feel that they didn’t 
want her. It was all very well to know 
that they were being very foolish and ill 
natured; it didn’t make life any the less 
doleful. 

All at once in the course of the impleasant, 
sloppy walk to school, she stopped short. 
She squared her shoulders and lifted her head 
proudly. 

^'I’m too silly for anything to let Anne 
spoil everything for me,” she said to her- 
self. ”I’m not going to, any longer. I had 
a fine time yesterday with the French officer 
and his funny little boy. There are lots of 
nice things to do. I’ll play with some of the 
other girls.” She hung up her coat and hat 
77 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


with the feeling that interesting things were 
going to happen. 

Interesting things did happen. In the 
civics lesson Miss Holt, who came in to 
teach the class, asked what children had 
ever been sightseeing in their own city. 
The response to her question revealed a 
truly pitiable condition of ignorance, she 
said, of the things strangers came across the 
continent to see. Philippa was particularly 
ashamed of her own benighted condition. 
At lunch time she gravitated toward a group 
of girls who had been, with herself, most in- 
terested in the question. In a few minutes 
they were wondering what they could do 
about it. Philippa was soon so excited over 
the matter that it was quite as if it had been 
an important question with her all her life. 
The moment was propitious. They had 
been told the school would be closed the 
next day to allow the teachers to attend an 
Institute. It was evidently predestined that 
that holiday should be used for sightseeing. 
Philippa offered to lead them out of the 
wilderness of ignorance into the promised 
land of knowledge. Anne, her back turned 
to the excited group, was at some pains to 
express her indifference; Virginia looked at 
78 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


them with open envy. But Philippa was 
honestly oblivious of both. She was riding 
the hobby of a new idea. 

When the matter was put up to the home 
authorities, there seemed to be no reasonable 
objection to the plan. Seven girls met at 
the car line equipped with money for car 
fare and for sandwiches somewhere on the 
way. Philippa was the proud possessor of a 
map of Washington, which she spread out 
solemnly in order to trace the perfectly well- 
known route to the Capitol. She was having 
a thoroughly good time. They attracted a 
good deal of attention in the car. They had 
dressed as far as their wardrobes would allow 
as tourists. One of the girls had imearthed 
a knapsack which she wore strapped upon 
her back. 

Perhaps people will think we are starting 
off on a cross-coimtry hike,” one of the girls 
whispered to Philippa. 

‘'I’m sure I hope so,” said Philippa, 
smartly. 

They reached the Capitol at ten o’clock 
sharp. They “did” that augustly beauti- 
ful building in half an hour. It was not 
that they did not want to stay longer, but 
they were held sternly to schedule time. 

79 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


In that half hour they climbed to the dome 
and had a vision of a misty, opalescent 
dream city shimmering with sunlight that 
was trying to break through a gray sky. 
They saw the green-fringed river, the proud 
shaft of the Washington Monument, with the 
classic peace of the Lincoln Memorial be- 
yond it. On the Virginia side of the river 
they were sure they made out the Lee home 
at Arlington. They saw white domes and 
dignified bulks of public buildings on both 
sides of the Mall, and they were fascinated 
by glimpses of shapely whiteness through 
the greenery in which the White House and 
the splendid group of public buildings on 
Seventeenth Street Southwest were set. 

Then they scrambled down to see the 
Senate and House Chambers and the Su- 
preme Court in session. That they were 
loath to leave because the story that a lawyer 
in a murder case, which was being tried, told 
a wild story of wild- West adventure that 
enthralled them. They paused to consider 
gravely the historical paintings in the corri- 
dors and to wander about Statuary Hall. 
They were rather puzzled to know just 
what they should think about that imtil 
Philippa’s laughter over the concourse of 

8o 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


ill-assorted marble gentlemen liberated their 
honest opinion and they were very witty 
indeed in the presence of haughtily unobserv- 
ant sculptured ‘'favorite sons” of many 
states. 

The half hour Philippa had allotted to the 
Congressional Library repaid them well, 
for they met in the gorgeous white-marble 
and gold entrance corridor a family friend 
of the Gales who happened to be one of the 
officials of the Library. He was mightily 
amused at the sight of Philippa at the head 
of her cohorts and took them about himself. 
First he gave them an idea of the scope of 
the institution, the splendid collection of 
prints, the musical library, the manuscript 
division where a vast collection of public 
documents is being made: letters, diaries, 
public utterances of the leading men in the 
history of the United States. They were 
thrilled by seeing the exquisitely written 
letters of Washington, his methodical diaries, 
and scrupulously kept accounts when he was 
the general of the armies of the Continental 
Congress. 

Then they were given a rapid survey of 
the beauties of the mural decorations which 
thebest artists in the country had contributed, 

8i 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


and saw how different the style was from 
that of the Capitol decoration. When they 
entered the Reading Room, in spite of 
the sign that commanded ^‘Silence,” they 
couldn’t help soft '‘Oh-h-h’s!” of wonder. 
And then Mr. Hunt explained to them that 
what gave the peculiar effect of joyous 
aspiration to the huge, domed room was a 
carefully thought out scheme in which color, 
material, workmanship had been combined 
to present a sort of symbol of all that was 
best in human intelligence. He showed 
them how the marble quarries of the whole 
world had been searched to produce the 
transition from deep rich brown of the col- 
umns to delicate cream, and then pointed out 
how the frescoes of the dome and the picture 
in the very top had combined spectrum 
colors until the effect was more radiant than 
mere daylight. 

They were then taken to the desk and, to 
illustrate the tnily marvelous system of 
book delivery — a device given to the Library 
by the builder, the late Bernard Green, a 
slip of paper was put in one of the pneximatic 
tubes which would deliver it at a desk near 
the proper bookstack. They put a book on 
one of the carriers hung on an endless chain, 
82 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


to be retiimed to a certain stack. Then 
they were conducted through wildernesses, 
story on story, of airy, clean bookstacks 
until they arrived in time to see the volume 
which they had started on its way delivered. 
It was almost impossible not to feel that the 
device had human intelligence. For they 
saw carrier after carrier, some with books in 
them, some empty, pass the place where 
they were waiting without stopping. But 
when the book they had seen placed in a 
carrier arrived, the wire basket, with a little 
click, tipped forward and deposited the vol- 
ume they were waiting for neatly on the 
table before them. 

''What’s the use of getting excited about 
ghost stories after that?” said Philippa as 
they filed out of the stacks again. 

When they were clattering down the won- 
derful carved marble staircase on their way 
to the exit they halted to look at Elihu 
Vedder’s great mosaic of Minerva. A gentle- 
man who passed them glanced from the 
artist’s conception of the clean vigor, rich- 
ness, power latent in human intelligence, 
incarnate in a gracious woman’s figure which 
yet carried with it an atmosphere of knightly 
devotion, to Philippa, who had paused, spell- 
83 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


bound, to gaze, her face a flame of eager 
admiration. 

‘‘When that child grows up she’s going to 
be very much the type,” he said to his 
companion. 

After they had walked by the Senate and 
House office buildings and had gone down 
the terrace to the foot of Capitol Hill, they 
paused to consider the further line of march. 
It was half past eleven; lunch began to seem 
desirable; they had much still to see. 

“I think we’d better have limch before 
we look at any more sights,” said Philippa, 
decidedly. “I don’t believe I could admire 
the most beautiful thing in the world now.” 

“Let’s have Itmch and then go to a 
movie and then go home,” said Jessie 
Stewart, hopefully ; she was too plump to be 
really enthusiastic about tmdue activity. 

One or two of the others agreed with her, 
but most of the girls felt with Philippa that 
they were out to do sightseeing, not movies. 

“Let’s put all the limch money together 
and see how much we’ve got,” Philippa sug- 
gested. “I’m sure we all want to have about 
the same thing.” When they had made a 
pool of dimes and nickles and a few quarters, 
Philippa considered it. “I think we ought to 
84 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

have two sandwiches apiece. Don’t you?” 
They all agreed to that. ‘'But then there 
* won’t be enough for anything sweet.” 

intended to have two sandwiches and 
a sundae. I had money enough for that,” 
said Jessie, in an aggrieved tone. 

“Now look here! We are all going to 
have lunch at the same cotmter, aren’t we?” 

“Yes. Of course.” 

“And I don’t think it would be a bit of 
fun to have some girls having sundaes and 
sodas and some girls not. I have an idea. 
We’ve all got car fare. If we save out one 
token to get home, won’t we have enough 
for everyone to have some desert?” 

“But then—” 

“Yes, we’d have to walk from here to the 
Monument. But I, for one, can do it. And 
I’d rather.” 

There was a good deal of discussion, and 
it looked at one time as if the convention was 
going to break up in dissension. But Phi- 
lippa was quite determined to put the plan 
through and finally she won over the ma- 
jority to her side. “We’ll go to a place I 
know where we can sit down, and we’ll 
break the walk and get rested there.” They 
all started off. 


8s 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


, They put two tables together at the little 
lunch room and had more fim over their 
lunch than if it had been a party planned for 
many weeks. Then, thoroughly rested, they 
formed in marching line, two and two, with 
Philippa like the captain, at the head, and 
started to walk down the wide Pennsylvania 
Avenue. 

People turned to look at them as they 
passed. It was no wonder. Walking at a 
good swinging pace, their faces bright with 
interest, cheeks glowing and eyes bright, 
they were well worth looking at. Somehow, 
everything they passed that day seemed 
interesting, everybody seemed filled with 
good feeling. 

In a short time they reached Fifteenth 
Street. They walked in front of the sym- 
metrical Greek front of the Treasury, past 
groups of government employees hurrying 
back from lunch, past the Ellipse to where 
the Monument loomed ever more and more 
monstrous. 

^‘You feel as if it would fall on you and 
crush you,” Philippa said, as they stood 
almost under it. 

'' Shall we walk up or ride in the elevator? ” 
asked Jessie Stewart, feebly. It was quite 
86 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

evident which way her inclinations would 
prompt her to take. The majority of the 
girls wanted to walk up. ^‘It seems foolish 
to be carried up in an elevator,” said Phi- 
lippa. ''I want to prove I can do it.” 

They started up the spiral stairs. At first 
they skipped up gayly, just to prove how 
easy it was. After the first hundred steps, 
however, they went more soberly, pausing 
to rest every two or three minutes. The 
special carved stones contributed by various 
states were an excellent excuse for lingering, 
defaced and chipped beyond recognition 
though most of them were. After two hun- 
dred steps they settled down doggedly to 
their task and Jessie Stewart began to com- 
plain bitterly. On and on they went, some 
of them straggling far behind, some of them 
keeping sturdily on. Five himdred steps 
foimd even Philippa willing to rest at stated 
intervals. The muscles of the calves of their 
legs and their knees felt benumbed. After 
seven himdred steps it required a sterner 
effort of the will than any of the girls had 
ever had to make before to keep them on. 
Philippa set her teeth together and went on. 
She had to stop every few minutes to get 
her breath down to its usual slow, regular 
7 87 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


measure. One thousand, she counted. She 
was beginning to see the light from above. 
She seemed all alone. She coiildn’t hear 
voices back of her. With a sense of triumph 
she pushed on. She came out into the little 
room at the top, staggering, too tired to 
stand up, but — ^first at the top! 

It was a long time before the last girl, 
poor red-faced, exhausted Jessie Stewart, 
had stumbled up. After the first tiredness 
had oozed away it was glorious to rest and 
fill their eyes with gazing. The five himdred 
and fifty feet of the shaft gave them an in- 
comparable view. The mists had all van- 
ished; they saw much more than they had 
seen from the Capitol. Their vision swept 
out beyond the city to the coimtry aroimd 
it. They could distinguish the plan of the 
city with its avenues radiating from the 
Capitol. With ever3rthing leading to the 
Capitol when they looked to the east and 
their eyes attracted toward the Lincoln 
Memorial on the west, with the great shaft 
in which they were in the center, dedicated 
to Washington, a sense of the spirit and the 
meaning of their coimtry began to thrill 
them. 

‘‘Oh, how wonderful it would have been if 
88 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


they could have kept the plan that Miss Holt 
told us L’Enfant had proposed, with won- 
derful buildings lining the Mall all the way 
from the Capitol!” Gertrude Tracy sighed. 

When they were ready to go, not even 
Philippa was anxious to walk down. So 
they waited for the next trip of the elevator 
and went down in luxury, although it did 
make them a little nervous at first to think of 
dropping all that distance. When they were 
safely landed on the earth again they were 
very willing to consider the route home. 

By this time they would have been only 
too glad to ride, but even if there were car 
fare enough there was no car line that would 
do them any good for some distance. So 
they trudged on as cheerfully as they could. 
They decided to take Seventeenth Street 
because that would take them past some of 
the most beautiful buildings in the city. 
They had little enthusiasm, however, when 
they passed the Corcoran Art Gallery, the 
D. A. R. Building. But the Pan-American 
Building Philippa insisted on diving into. 

'‘We don’t know when we will get here 
again, and we just ought to see that. Doreen 
said there isn’t anything in the city like it.” 
So they dragged their tired feet inside the 
89 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


portal and were glad they had. For, the min- 
ute they found themselves in the Court of the 
Fountain, with the tinkle of falling water, 
the tall palms about it, and the brilliantly 
colored parrots flying through their branches 
or making living pictiues of flame of them- 
selves as they sat motionless, they were in 
another world. There were comfortable 
seats to rest on while they feasted their eyes, 
and they found that refreshment of eyes and 
minds that comes from the unfamiliar thing. 

“I don’t believe I could have got to the 
car if we hadn’t gone in there,” said poor 
Jessie as they stood waiting for the car that 
would take them out to the Park. When 
the car came — and, luckily, there were seats 
for them all — ^they settled themselves with 
great sighs of relief. 


CHAPTER X 


T hat night Philippa was too tired to go to 
sleep. Mrs. Gale, horrified at the im- 
moderate amount of climbing the ambitious 
company had assigned itself for one day, put 
Philippa to bed after a hot bath and a good 
rubbing of her poor, aching legs. But even 
that didn't serve. Long after everybody in 
the house was in bed and asleep the child 
lay with wide-open eyes. 

There were times, at long intervals, it is 
true, when Philippa's excitable temperament 
ran a bit ahead of her healthy body and she 
couldn't sleep. She had learned to dread 
those hours of wakefulness, for morbid terri- 
fying thoughts were apt to torment her. 

To-night, after reviewing in triumphant 
satisfaction all that they had accomplished 
during the day, and congratulating herself 
because she had proved that she could have 
a good time without Anne and Virginia, a 
wretched sense of loneliness and loss began to 
creep in. She couldn't banish it. For so 
91 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


long tiiey had done everything together that 
the habit of associating them with every- 
thing she did made her, again and again, 
bring them into this crowded day also. And 
then she would be met again with a sense of 
blankness and loss when she remembered 
how things really were. A hundred times she 
felt an impulse — ^more — a longing to go to 
Anne and ask to make up. But she recoiled 
from the idea every time. 

^‘It isn'f that I am angry with her,” she 
vowed to herself. But I wasn’t the one that 
got angry, and if I try to make up first she 
will think I’m saying that I was. And it 
isn’t fair.” Then she would turn restlessly 
over and try to go to sleep and forget it all. 
But she couldn’t go to sleep. 

This went on for hours, so when she awoke 
in morning, after about half of a night’s rest, 
she was tired and heavy eyed. She was 
lame, too, of course. In short, she was 
thoroughly wretched. And, of course, that 
made her cross inside and very proper and 
dignified outside. The family was sympa- 
thetic, ignored her very apparent irritability, 
and Philippa got off to school without hav- 
ing in the least betrayed how she felt, she 
thought. 


92 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


She came home as unhappy as she had left. 
Fully half of the girls who had gone with her 
were not at school; the ones who were there 
were as tired and listless as herself. After 
the pleasure of impressing the other girls 
with their achievements of the day before 
was over, they weren’t in the least interested 
with one another. Philippa’s vivid imagina- 
tion saw before her a lifetime of boredom with 
girls she didn’t care for. 

''If this is what life is going to be,” she 
thought, gloomily ''it certainly isn’t much 
fun.” This sort of thing went on for days. 
The family began to lose patience with 
her. Her mother spoke to her rather sharply 
about the necessity of pulling herself out 
of such a dismal mood. This seemed to 
do some good, Mrs. Gale thought, for she 
was outwardly more cheerful. She didn’t 
come home from school until dinner time. 
Whether this meant that she had made up 
with Anne and Virginia the mother couldn’t 
tell. She didn’t want to ask. If there was 
some sore spot the child was trying to shield 
so it shouldn’t be bruised again, she should 
be left alone. Mrs. Gale wouldn’t pry. 
When Philippa was ready to tell her, the 
child would come of her own accord. But it 


93 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


was surprising how much the whole family 
was depressed while Philippa was hiding her- 
self from them behind the cloud she herself 
had made. 

One day, just after three o’clock, Mrs. Gale 
answered the phone in the living room. It 
was the voice of Mr. Randolph, Jeff’s father. 

^‘Has Philippa come home yet?” 

''No, not yet.” Mrs. Gale was rather 
surprised. She didn’t know that Philippa 
knew Mr. Randolph. 

"They don’t answer the phone at the 
house and I don’t know whether she has got 
there yet. I’ve been detained longer than I 
expected to be and I wanted to know whether 
to hurry home or not. I’ve usually been able 
to cotmt on Philippa’s being there at this 
time. I don’t know what I would have done 
without her. She’s been nothing short of a 
trump. The boy hasn’t seemed to make 
friends here very readily. His mother’s 
death, the change, everything, has been 
hard on him. Perhaps he’s a bit difficult. 
But now he’s flat on his back.” 

"Oh, but what's the matter? Has the 
doctor found out yet?” 

"We can’t tell yet; there is too much 
inflammation. The doctor doesn’t know 


94 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


whether a ligament is strained or broken, or 
whether there is some more serious trouble. 
But we can’t tell until they X-ray, and they 
can’t do that until the inflammation goes 
down. Until then he must be kept abso- 
lutely quiet in bed. And it’s been no easy 
job, with nobody but servants in the house — 
and stupid ones at that. I’ve had to be away 
a good part of every day. But that dandy 
little girl of yours jumped right in. Just as 
if she had been his sister. Almost a streak 
of the mother in — as if she knew how my 
little chap needed one.” The voice was mo- 
mentarily imsteady. ”She comes in after 
school every day and reads to the boy and 
plays games with him. She gets him to 
laughing, which is best of all. Yesterday I 
was held down at my office longer than I 
had expected and I was anxious to know 
whether she had got there or not. I couldn’t 
get my own house. I’m afraid I haven’t 
made you feel how grateful I am. Have a 
chance to tell you sometime.” 

Mrs. Gale hung up the receiver, feeling 
altogether dazed. So this boy was another 
of Philippa’s lame ducks. She had felt the 
boy’s loneliness. It was the same impulse 
toward the hurt thing that had been with 
95 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


her almost since sne was a baby. With her 
sure instinct the child had divined the ache 
in the heart of the motherless boy. She had 
felt he needed companionship. That was 
why she had tried to get him into the club. 
This was the ‘‘reason” she didn’t give. She 
had had a scruple about betraying the soli- 
tary lad’s need ; it was a fine, delicate scruple 
for the girl to have had and hidden from 
them all. 

It was natural that Mrs. Gale should have 
awaited Philippa’s home-coming that day 
with more than usual impatience. She 
wanted to make amends for her own lack of 
understanding. And how warmly Jeff’s 
father had spoken. In short, Mrs. Gale was 
in a glow of pride over her youngest — quite 
sentimental, in fact — and ready, by the time 
Philippa really did come, to place a crown 
upon her head or wings upon her shoulders 
or a Croix de guerre upon her sturdy breast. 

It was imfortunate that Philippa could 
not have better played the center of the 
melodrama. She was tired and hungry and 
perhaps, in consequence, in a temper that 
was far from angelic. 

“How did you find Jeff to-day? ” Mrs. Gale 
opened the drama by inquiring, smilingly. 

96 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

There was an ungracious stare, Philippa 
apparently relinquishing unwillingly the idea 
that there was some sort of criticism in her 
mother’s question. 

''He’s all right,” she finally ejaculated, 
grumpily. 

Slightly discomfited, but still determined 
to have her mother’s meed of gloating over 
her child’s superiority, Mrs. Gale said, gently : 

"Mr. Randolph called me up, dear, and 
told what a help you had been to him. I 
was so glad to hear it.” 

"’S’ nothing,” Philippa replied, ungra- 
ciously. "Mother, isn’t dinner ready yet? 
I’m starved.” 

"It won’t be ready for quite half an hour 
yet.” The mother was a little chilled in 
spite of herself. "You know we have dinner 
at half past six.” 

"Oh, but I can't wait until then. I’ll 
die!” Philippa whined. "Can’t I have a 
piece of cake or something? If I have to 
spend every afternoon trying to amuse Jeff — ” 

"No, you can’t have anything to eat before 
dinner. And, dear, nobody is forcing you. 
I thought it was your own idea.” 

"Well, I’m just all talked out and laughed 
out and read out. I’ve told him everything 
97 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


that’s been said in this family for the last 
year. He makes me tell everything we think, 
even; he seems to think we’re a regular 
vaudeville show. I wish father told funny 
stories like Anne’s father. But he never 
does. And I don’t see that my talking does 
Jeff any good, either.” 

Mrs. Gale would have been ready to shake 
the heroine by this time if she hadn’t de- 
tected something in the peevish tone that 
told the story of the long day that had 
strained the nerves of even a splendidly 
vigorous child like her own. And hadn’t 
she, herself, suffered from the reaction after 
an act of unselfish kindliness? Only she had 
grown wise enough to forestall it, so no one 
but herself knew the irritation. 

”I’m siure it does Jeff good, sweetheart,” 
she said, gently. '‘His father seems to think 
so, anyway. And I think if you’ll go out to 
the kitchen and tell Mollie that I say so 
and that it’s a very special occasion, maybe 
she’ll give you a good, big piece of the 
chocolate cake that we’re going to have for 
desert — ” 

"Gosh!” 

"Philippa, I wish you wouldn’t say 'Gosh/ 
It—” 


98 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


She was speaking to an empty room. With 
a whoop of delight the philanthropist had 
disappeared and could be heard clattering 
down the hall. 

With a little smile, half tender, half hu- 
morous, on her lips, Mrs. Gale began to dress 
for dinner. As she dressed, her mind re- 
verted to her husband. She wondered what 
news he would bring back this evening. 
When he had left in the morning it had been 
with an interview in prospect that he hoped 
great things for. But then, her husband was 
always so optimistic. The Senator with 
whom he had an appointment was a member 
of the Post Office Committee that had his 
bill for the readjustment of postmasters* 
salaries in its hands. Two of the five Sena- 
tors were in favor of reporting the bill favor- 
ably, two were in all probability opposed. 
This man, Redfem of Kansas, was doubtful. 
Mrs. Gale sighed a little as she did her hair 
the way the family liked it. 


CHAPTER XI 


A bout eight o'clock one evening, several 
L days later, the telephone bell rang, 
startlingly loud in a quiet house. Mrs. Gale 
answered from the Uving room. The door 
was open, so Philippa, trying to fasten her 
attention on the Constitution, heard plainly 
her mother's responses: 

‘^Oh, how do you do, Mr. Randolph! . . . 
That's good. . . . And Jeff? . . . I'm sure it’s 
an anxious time, but I hope — ... Yes, Phi- 
lippa's here. . . . Oh — I don't know just how 
she would feel about it. ..." 

Philippa pricked up her ears. Her mother's 
tone warned her that something debatable 
was being proposed. She was sure it related 
to her. 

''Why, I really can't say, Mr. Randolph. 
. . . Yes, I imderstand just how you feel. . . . 
Yes, yes, I know" — her voice lowered sym- 
pathetically — "but — she had been counting 
on the family dinner here with us. It really 
means so much to us all, with Bayard home. 
. . .Yes, yes, I know just how it must be. 


100 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

We would all want to do anything. I’ll just 
have to ask Philippa herself. I couldn’t pos- 
sibly decide the question for her.” 

Philippa, huddled over her book, looked 
up at her mother as if she were warding 
something off. 

'' I know just what you’re going to tell me, 
mother,” she said accusingly. ^*I knew just 
as soon as you said his name. I might have 
known that’s what would happen. He wants 
me to come there to have Thanksgiving 
dinner with him and Jeff. Oh, mother, I 
can’t! I just can’t! I’ve been thinking 
about it for days. So jolly with Bayard home 
and everything. I can’t give it up!” 

Mrs. Gale wondered at the intensity of 
grief in the child’s face. 

Why, dear, if you feel that way about it 
nobody will force you to go. I can’t bear 
the thought of it, myself. It’s only that he 
seemed to feel it would help them. And the 
boy wants you so. It is sad for them. 
Think of it — ^the first holiday time since 
Jeff’s mother left them. I couldn’t help 
feeling sorry for him. I tell you” — she had 
the air of having an inspiration — ''perhaps 
we can have them both here. Jeff could be 
brought down in an automobile.’^ 


lOI 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Philippa shook her head despairingly. 

‘‘He can’t be moved, not a bit, until they 
take the X-ray and know what’s the matter. 
They’ve been waiting for the swelling to go 
down. They’re going to use the X-ray thing 
the day after Thanksgiving, Jeff said.” 

Mrs. Gale had a moment’s vivid realiza- 
tion of what it would mean if one of her 
children was where Jeff was and they were 
all waiting in suspense to know whether 
there was some hideous malady lurking that 
would mean suffering, lameness, deformity. 
She covered her eyes. The thought was too 
horribly real. 

‘‘Mother, you don’t think I’ll have to 
go?” 

‘‘Dear child, I can’t decide for you. And 
we will all feel as badly to have you away 
as you will to go. Nobody could blame you 
if you felt you couldn’t.” 

Philippa’s rosy face grew very serious. 
Her mouth set itself and her downy brows 
knit. For a moment the child was very 
still. Then, with an evident effort, she spoke : 

‘‘There’s nothing else to do. I’ll have to 

go." 

“Perhaps — ” her mother began, hopefully. 

“No. There isn’t any ‘perhaps.’ It 


102 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


wouldn’t be square of me not to do it. If 
you’re a friend you’ve got to act like one. 
I’ll tell him now.” She got up with a reso- 
lution that any sorely tried grown-up might 
have envied. 

''Wait a minute, dear. There ought to 
be some way to arrange it. Why, yes! How 
stupid of me not to have thought of it before ! 
All we’ve got to do is to arrange different 
hours for dinner. And you can go from one 
to the other. I’m sure Mr. Randolph will 
adapt his plans to ours. Or Mollie won’t 
mind changing when she knows. Which 
dinner woiild you rather have come first? 
Of course the second turkey won’t taste 
just the same.” 

"Oh, why didn’t we think of that before? 
We must have ours last. I won’t much mind 
ours being the second turkey, though I sup- 
pose you can’t have quite the same feeling 
about the second one on the same day. I’ll 
only eat a httle of Jeff’s. I had been thinking 
about seeing Mollie bring him — ^the turkey — 
in and know it was our Thanksgiving. But 
the most important thing that I just can’t 
miss is to sit around the fire after dinner 
and everybody talk. Oh, mother, you’ll 
tell Bayard he mustn’t tell any stories about 
8 103 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


football or the fellows until I get home. 
Will you promise?” 

'‘Yes, dear.” Mother was watching the 
life and color and happiness coming back to 
Philippa’s bright face. “And, dear me, 
you’ll be the gay member of the family this 
time — -quite like the people the society editor 
makes her living out of — shaving to go from 
one dinner to another.” 

“Won’t it he fun!'' Philippa’s fancy im- 
mediately dramatized the situation. She 
adjusted upon her face what she fondly 
fancied to be the languid regard of the so- 
cially beleagured and minced affectedly to 
the phone, the little finger of her right hand, 
for some occult reason, ostentatiously curled 
out. Then she stopped and burst into a peal 
of laughter at her own foolishness. 

“All the same, mother, I did decide to go 
before we thought of this, didn’t I ? And you 
believe I would have gone if there hadn’t 
been any fun in it at all, and if I had missed 
the whole dinner with us all?” she asked a 
little wistfully. 

“I’m sure you would, sweetheart,” Mrs. 
Gale answered, softly. And she stood, a 
tender smile on her face, while Philippa 
called the Randolphs’ number and, in her 
104 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


fresh, joyous, little-girl voice suggested the 
arrangements they had just planned. Evi- 
dently there was nothing on Mr. Randolph’s 
side but eager agreement. After that, as it 
was evidently quite impossible for the child 
to get her lessons, Mrs. Gale sent her to bed. 
Then she had a most agreeable half hour re- 
hearsing the little scene to her husband and 
scheduling, one by one, the several qualities 
that made Philippa quite different from any 
other child. Mothers are foolish, sometimes, 
just like their daughters. 


CHAPTER XII 


P hilippa had her wish and went with 
Mr. Gale and Doreen to meet Bayard 
the night before Thanksgiving. It would 
have been a thrilling thing just to have the 
brilliant night ride down the Avenue with its 
flashing electric signs, and walk into the 
huge station with its harmonious vastness 
and its echoing arch. The sight of throngs 
of travelers moving here and there, the por- 
ters carrying bags, the sense of movement 
and the mystery of the lives out of which all 
these people came and into which they would 
go, all these were an intoxication to her. 
Her head high and with dreaming eyes she 
followed the older ones. 

They found they had not long to wait, so 
they took their stations by the gates. In a 
very few minutes the gates were opened and 
the first comers from the incoming train 
began to trickle through. They came on 
and on, a heavy stream now. It began to 
seem a very long time to the child and she 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


grew nervous. What if Bayard, after all, 
had missed his train? 

Striding along, his head above every other 
in the throng, and his face decorated with an 
expansive grin that showed almost every one 
of his strong white teeth, Bayard was making 
sweeping gestures to them from the midst of 
the crowd. As soon as he got through the 
gate he seized Doreen and Philippa in a 
simultaneous, comprehensive hug through 
which he managed to retain a heavy Glad- 
stone bag, a big box of candy, magazines, 
and a raincoat. This done, he looked 
dangerously near hugging his father, too, but 
desisted just in time, and pumped his father’s 
hand up and down for a beaming minute 
instead. 

^‘One of fifty-seven varieties of nice things 
about you, Bayard,” Doreen laughed, ”is 
that you never find it necessary to pretend 
you’re not glad to see your family.” 

The grin widened a bit. 

*^But where’s mother?” he demanded. 
‘^Nothing wrong?” 

‘‘No, indeed. I think she felt Mollie 
hadn’t done full justice to your room.” 

They turned back. Nobody could quite 
tell why it was that the world always seemed 
107 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


suddenly gilded when Bayard appeared. 
Big and exuberant and brimming with funny 
big-boy — and little-boy — ^larkishness as he 
was, something more than the instinctive 
optimism of the glad young animal entered 
the room with him — a sunny peace. Mr. 
Gale had held the theory that every growing 
boy should have, if possible, some years of 
his life in large open spaces and should know 
something of the frontier struggle with the 
forces of natirre. For this reason Bayard 
had spent two years of his short life on a 
ranch in the Northwest. The result had 
been not only that fine breadth of shoulder 
and splendid muscle had been developed to 
balance his great height, but that something 
of the calm power of great moimtains and 
wide valleys and of the God of the far horizon 
had possessed the boy’s soul. 

So it happened that when Bayard was 
home most of the family perplexities sooner 
or later received his cheerful young verdict. 
The merely mechanical details that had 
gone wrong about the house since he was 
last there required no explanation; as a 
matter of course, the morning after his ar- 
rival he made his way about the house in the 
soft-footed deliberate pace that Doreen called 

io8 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


his ‘‘cowboy lope,” seeking out trouble 
which he dealt with on the spot, showing an 
intimate acquaintance with things mechan- 
ical and with electric wires that seemed 
nothing short of uncanny to the other mem- 
bers of the household. As for less material 
puzzles, they were known to him because 
he was so one with them all that there was 
no reason for not thinking aloud in his 
presence. 

Thus, he knew all about Jeff in the first 
few minutes of his little sister’s conversa- 
tion, all about the quarrel with Anne and 
Virginia and about the little empty aching 
feeling in her heart which the rest of the 
family had not divined, privately thinking 
that Philippa’s apparent contentment separ- 
ated from her chums showed her to be a little 
callous. While awaiting the opportunity to 
see what he could do about this little emo- 
tional short circuit, Bayard was gravely at- 
tentive to the more obvious claim upon 
sympathy of the injured boy, and finally 
suggested that he go with Philippa to see 
the kid. 

So when the child started out for her first 
Thanksgiving dinner on the sunshiny, sharp, 
November day, Bayard went with her to the 
109 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Randolphs’ house. Without being conscious 
of it, Philippa held her head very high and 
swung her shoulders with a decided swagger. 
She was very proud of her big, splendid- 
looking brother; she felt it increased her im- 
portance to be seen with him. People always 
turned and looked at him in the street, and, 
although she was devoted to him on grounds 
quite independent of the popular verdict, 
she still could npt help having her good 
opinion of Bayard heightened by all this. 

They were shown into Jeff’s room and 
there they found a white and shining little 
round table set at the side of his bed. Mr. 
Randolph had made an effort to give an 
effect of festival to the room by bringing 
home a great bunch of gorgeous red roses. 
But otherwise the room, handsome as the 
furniture had been intended by its manu- 
facturers to be, might have been a room in 
jSiy expensive hotel. The efforts of the maid 
to do the honors of the occasion had merely 
led her to put everything that indicated 
use away. So, although Jeff’s eyes were 
bright with anticipation, and the dressing 
gown they had slipped his arms through was 
a luxurious one for a boy, he looked forlorn 
enough to Bayard. Perhaps it was the hands 


no 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


lying inertly on the coverlid that most 
touched Bayard’s heart. His weeks in bed 
had already made JefiE’s hands so unboyishly 
clean and delicate. 

JeflE regarded the older boy’s six-feet-one 
of muscular lithe strength with the hangdog 
look which Bayard understood rdeant shy- 
ness. The admiration took on a bitter tinge 
of envy which was, perhaps, not remarkable 
when one considered that Jeff was awaiting 
the verdict which would decide whether any 
of the sports — the only thing in life that a 
normal boy thinks really worth while — ^would 
ever be possible to him. But Bayard saw to 
it that he didn’t feel that way long. The big 
chap sat down on the foot of the bed so care- 
fully as not to jar in the least the boy who 
lay there so helplessly. Bayard had a con- 
trolled deftness of motion that moved his 
great bulk with the delicate precision of a 
well-oiled and perfectly adjusted machine. 

With insight that came naturally from 
recollections of his own not far distant boy- 
hood, Bayard talked mainly about college 
sports. But the tact that made him dwell 
chiefly on returned A. E. F. boys, temporarily 
laid up with wotmds, who had ^^come back” 
and proved themselves stars in football or 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


track, was Bayard’s own special gift. So it 
happened that in the few minutes he lingered 
by the boy’s bedside Bayard made Jeff 
laugh many times and left a look of eager 
interest in his face that had not been there 
when he came. 

Then the youngest Gale scion took up 
the task that the eldest had begun. Lack- 
ing Bayard’s peculiar endowment, she yet 
brought certain gifts. For one thing, sitting 
at the table with the two masculine beings, 
child as she was, Philippa brought something 
of the womanly touch they had been without 
so many dreary meals. When her coat was 
off Jeff’s eyes had widened a little at the 
pretty frock it disclosed. He could not know, 
of coiu*se, that Mrs. Gale had just fashioned 
it out of Doreen’s old yellowed graduation 
dress, that it was the dye pot and much 
planning and skillful fingers that had wrought 
it, and that it was only at the very last that 
some benign witchery seemed to have taken 
possession and turned the style, that their 
own limitation of material had made neces- 
sary, into just the most becoming lines that 
a girl of Philippa’s age and build could wear. 
It had turned out a really lovely blue, 
neither dark nor very light, but as joyous as 

II2 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

summer skies. There were delicate ruffles of 
white chiffon around the neck and short 
sleeves and a white satin sash that was first 
veiled and then revealed in a way that was 
wholly mysterious to the male beings, but 
that Mrs. Gale knew only too well the reasons 
for. But the whole effect of the simple but 
gracious lines and the softly pretty textures 
was to turn Philippa from a healthy little 
girl into a tall, girlish prophecy of charming 
young ladyhood. 

How much of the shade of deference that 
crept into the manner of both the Randolphs 
that day was due to that frock neither they 
nor Philippa will ever know. But she vaguely 
sensed it and definitely responded to it. And 
she most certainly enjoyed it. With truly 
admirable restraint she contrived to eat only 
just enough of the Randolph turkey to con- 
vince both father and son that she was en- 
joying it. As she chattered on, making little 
imconscious dramas of the manifold small 
happenings of her life, dramas that were 
often tinged with humor as well as the in- 
stinctive artistically effective, she was like a 
vividly companionable fire on the long-cold 
hearth of this father and son. So the realiza- 
tion that she was interesting them went to 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


her head a bit, and her color heightened, and 
words and incidents came more and more 
easily. Still, when the time came for her to 
go, she realized that she really coiild not 
have held out much longer. She had told 
them about everything she knew. But she 
was quite sure that neither one had guessed 
it. So she made he;- departure with as com- 
fortable a sense of having been a success as 
any well-established queen of the footlights. 
It was only at the very last, when she said 
good-by to Jeff, that a wistfulness that 
would have made the boy disgusted with him- 
self could he have seen it in his own eyes, 
sent her rather pensively away. 

When she got back to her own house she 
foimd the family just going in to dinner. 
And it was so good to be with her own people 
that, when Mollie brought in the big brown 
turkey and put it down before Mr. Gale the 
miracle was accomplished: It was as if np 
dinner had gone before it! Moreover, the 
real scene was every bit as good as her anti- 
cipations had made it. That alone was 
enough to make Philippa long remember 
that Thanksgiving dinner. 

After the honest pleasure of eating good 
things in company with a jubilant tableful 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


of happy family, after the annual exhuma- 
tion of all the ancient Gale jokes, greeted 
with as uproarious laughter as though any 
one of the hearers could not have recounted 
it in as exact detail as the one who happened 
to have got to it first, after a genial but 
qtiieter sense of well-being had settled down 
on them with the nuts and raisins and bon- 
bons, there fell the first pause. It lasted a 
long time; nobody, apparently, was ready 
to fill it. Exchanging glances, they began to 
wonder at it. Then seeing father, a little 
grave, exchange a glance with mother, the 
children began to realize that something was 
coming. Philippa even felt oddly alarmed. 


CHAPTER XIII 


V/'OUR mother and I thought we would 

1 take advantage of Bayard being home 
to lay some matters before you all. Since 
every one is vitally concerned in them, it 
seems only right that you should all have an 
opportunity to imderstand and to give yoiu: 
opinion.” 

Philippa, seeing Bayard looking intently 
at his father, and Doreen unusually serious, 
began to feel a little frightened. But she 
was more interested than frightened when 
her father began, very simply, but with as 
much seriousness as though he were laying a 
case before a court: 

''You all know that I have been trying to 
enforce payment to my clients in the Post- 
masters’ Compensation Claims.” 

Philippa settled back in acute disappoint- 
ment. She had thought it was going to be 
something new and interesting. And it was 
nothing but the same old postmasters’ claims 
that she had heard about ever since she was 

ii6 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


bom! And, as far back as she cotild re- 
member, she had always closed up her ears 
when her father began to talk about them. 

think you ought to know something 
about the claims. Many years ago, certain 
parts of the West and Southwest were very 
thinly settled. Post offices were often estab- 
lished for hamlets of a few widely scattered 
homes. In such cases, coimtry postmasters 
were appointed at tiny salaries; a country 
storekeeper or farmer had a few boxes set up 
in his house and acted as postmaster, in some 
cases for ten or twenty dollars a month. 

'‘But all that country was at the beginning 
of great expansion. There were discoveries 
of oil and minerals; boom towns grew over- 
night. The postmaster, you know, is under 
oath to discharge the duties of his office; the 
term of office was for two years. These men 
who were being paid one or two hundred dol- 
lars a year had a sudden increase of duties 
that made their work ten times as exacting. 
Many of them had to neglect their other 
employments, hire additional office room, 
have additional boxes made, employ assist- 
ants. When they wrote to Washington ask- 
ing to be relieved of their duties, their resig- 
nations were not acted on. They were forced 
117 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


by law to discharge their duties until a suc- 
cessor should be appointed at the expiration 
of their term of service. 

One of these cases was put into my hands 
for collection by a man I used to know. I 
took the matter up with the department 
here and secured a reasonable settlement 
with very little difficulty. As soon as the 
news spread, other cases began to pour in on 
me. Now I have several thousands of these 
cases. As soon as the department realized 
that a million dollars, at least, was involved 
in these claims, they refused to settle. It 
was necessary to get legislation through 
Congress. I have now been working on this 
for ten years. Sometimes the bill has been 
passed by one House, but not by the other, 
before the expiration of that Congress. 
Then I would have to begin all over again. 

'^The bill has good friends in the House of 
Representatives, and last session it passed. 
Unless it passes the Senate this session and is 
signed by the President it may be pretty 
hard sledding ahead for the Gale family. 
You see, I am working for a contingent fee. 
I feel that the chances are fairly good, but 
there can be no certainty. It may take 
years to get the bill through. I may never 

ii8 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


get it through. Most of the capital I had 
when I began has been spent. I have given 
up almost all other law business for this. 
There has been much expense, a large force 
of clerks, postage, family budget. I am be- 
ginning to feel the pinch. I will probably 
feel it more in the future. And your mother 
and you children will be affected by this. 
You will have to go without many things you 
want; some things, perhaps, that you need. 

Recently a very good offer has been 
made to me. I can be the legal adviser for 
the Washington branch of a big corporation. 
That will mean a settled income and a fairly 
good one. But it will also mean giving up 
the postmasters’ cases. What do you chil- 
dren think about it?” 

Bayard, whose clear eyes had not left his 
father’s face, was the first to speak: 

'‘As a business proposition it is the settled, 
limited thing against the gamble.” 

"That’s it. I couldn’t have put it better 
myself.” 

"What do you yourself want to do?” 

Mr. Gale waved that question aside a little 
impatiently. 

"It is your opinion I want now, not my 
own.” 

9 119 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


''Then — you believe that these claims are 
just, don’t you?” 

"Absolutely just.” Mr. Gale spoke eagerly. 

"How confident do you feel about the 
result — sometime? ” 

"I think I can succeed. Though perhaps 
I’m too sanguine. But — you must think of 
it as being very uncertain.” 

"But it’s the hig thing, isn’t it?” It was 
quiet Doreen who asked this question. But 
it was a Doreen whose eyes were too bright 
to look especially quiet at this moment. 

"Yes, but it’s only a chance.” Mr. Gale’s 
insistence was becoming a little nervous. 

"Then I believe in the bigger thing 
always.” The bright color had come into 
her face. "You never get anywhere if you 
tie yourself down to the cowardly, settled, 
sure thing. You’ve got to take a chance.” 

"Now wait a bit, Doreen, imtil you 
tmderstand.” 

"Our Ethics course starts out with the 
proposition that we ought to be governed by 
the 'greatest good of the greatest number,’ ” 
Bayard said, smiling. "How does this work 
out by that standard?” 

"Not much question there.” Mr. Gale 
smiled a little painfully. "Don’t you sup- 

120 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


pose IVe fought all this ground over many 
times? There are thousands of these poor 
old fellows who lost one or two years’ work 
right out of their lives, and many of them 
had to go into debt to pay for having the 
government’s business carried on. And that 
from a class that, necessarily, could ill afford 
to lose it. If I give up the cases, I doubt if 
anyone else will carry them on; while if I 
take this job. I’ll do nothing but help in- 
crease, perhaps, the dividends of an already too 
prosperous concern — although it’s a fairly de- 
cent concern as corporations go. But my first 
thought ought to be for my family. If I were 
alone, of course — But there! that’s bosh!” 

^^Yes, but if you were alone?” 

^'Why then — But one has no right to 
argue on an impossible basis.” 

'‘But if you were?" 

"There’s no question. By my soul, I’d 
stick to those fellows until they got every 
penny due them.” There was a sudden flash 
in Mr. Gale’s blue eyes; his strongly jutting 
profile had an eaglelike power. 

"Then that settles it. I’d stick to the 
postmasters.” 

"Oh, do, dad. It’s so much more interest- 
ing.” Doreen’s eyes were shining. 


I2I 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘*But I’m not alone, and you yoimgsters 
don’t understand what it may mean. A 
tough grind if the bill doesn’t go through this 
year, even. And beyond that — I can’t see 
you all suffer. You don’t really know what 
it is to go without necessary things — ” 

Philippa, whose eyes had been moving from 
one to the other of the speakers, could contain 
herself no longer. 

‘‘Oh, Gosh!” 

“Philippa, please don’t say ‘Gosh.’” 

“No’m, I won’t.” 

“Is it going to be put off any longer? 
Ever since I can remember we have been 
saying: ‘When the postmasters’ bill passes’ 
— ‘When our ship comes in’ — ‘When we 
get our fortune.’ I’ve played I’m going to 
have that fortune so long that I’m just sick 
and tired of it!” Her voice rose in a wail 
and the tears were not far away. “ I think it 
would be just wonderful to have a regular 
income and know what we could do. I’m 
so tired of saying ‘if’ all the time. Just 
yesterday I asked mother if I could have a 
new coat next winter and she said, ‘If the 
bill goes through.’ Oh, please do decide to 
have a regular income, father.” 

Mrs. Gale was regarding her with as- 


122 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


tounded eyes in which there was yet some 
sympathy. Mr. Gale eyed his youngest in 
perturbation. That view was so eminently 
sensible, but so opposite to what one would 
have expected from Philippa. It was con- 
fusing. He could not resist. 

‘‘But, dear child, I get letters every day 
from these men. Some of them are quite old 
and very poor. I’m — I’m afraid I am re- 
sponsible for their being sure that they were 
going to get their money. A hundred or so 
is a large sum to them. They can’t under- 
stand the delay when they know their cause 
is just. They believe so in the government. 
It can’t do wrong. A letter I got to-day made 
me feel badly. It’s just the usual story of 
poverty and disappointment, I suppose. 
But it broke me all up. The man’s wife had 
been ill. It took all the money he could 
earn — ^more than their mere living — for med- 
icine and doctors’ bills. The interest on his 
little farm would be due in three months. 
The man who had lent the money to him 
wanted his comer of land and would foreclose 
in a day if the interest wasn’t paid. ‘ Seems 
like it would have been better if you hadn’t 
raised my hopes about getting the claim 
through at all,’ this man, Jeb Smth, wrote 

123 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


me, ‘if Tve got to be disappointed after all. 
It just don’t seem hardly right when I’ve 
worked as hard as I knew how.’ ” Mr. Gale’s 
voice was a little unsteady. He had been 
carrying for many months a heavy burden, 
and there were days when the simple reitera- 
tion of such appeals almost unmanned him. 

“Oh, father ! ’ ’ Philippa’s eyes were bright 
with tears. “I didn’t think of it that way — 
about people like us, you know. Of course, I 
want you to get the money for that poor 
man. It doesn’t make a bit of difference 
about my new coat or anything. I can per- 
fectly well wear my old one. I’ll take exer- 
cises so I won’t get too big for it.’’ 

Bayard pinched her cheek with a laugh 
that somehow ‘made everything all jolly 
and ftmny again,’ as Philippa put it to 
herself. 

“Now, you see, father,” he said, “the 
last obstacle has been removed. There isn’t 
any reason in the world why you shouldn’t 
take a chance. All the reasons that count 
are for it. And, gee whizz! I’ll tell the world 
you’ve got somebody back of you. You 
know, if the bottom drops out of things for 
a time. I’m perfectly capable of earning a 
pretty decent pay envelope right now if I 
124 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

stopped college this very day. I tested my- 
self out that time we got stranded out in 
Montana, you know, when your check was 
missent. Didn’t I pull down my eight dol- 
lars a day unloading freight, and without 
sweating any too much, either? I’d like to 
know why the Gale family can’t take a 
flyer if it wants to. I’d be the worst kind of 
a slacker if I couldn’t come to the front if 
there was any need for it. It ’d be a whole 
lot more fun, anyway, than driving my old 
bean so hard along midyears that I’ve had 
a regular hot box up there — or so it seems 
about that time. No, Ancestor, the sum 
isn’t going to come out according to the 
answer in the back of the book if you leave 
Son out of it.” The spread-eagle attitude he 
struck made Philippa giggle. But nobody 
underestimated the solid truth of what he 
said, for all that. 

”And I could get a position if I just had a 
course in a business college.” Doreen looked 
particularly like a descendent of all the Vere 
de Veres as she made this practical sugges- 
tion. ”I’ve always thought it would be 
more fun to earn your own living.” 

Philippa was fearfully jealous. 

” Everybody else can do things and I 
125 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

can’t, because you’ll say I have to stay in 
school.” 

The pathos in her tone didn’t prevent Mrs. 
Gale from speaking with some significance. 
It was the first time she had entered ver- 
bally into the discussion. 

^'If you’ll only think about your clothes a 
little the next time you feel inclined to shin 
up a rough tree, I’d be a wealthy woman 
with what I’d save out of my allowance.” 

The hearty laugh that went up was wel- 
come to everybody but Philippa, whose hurt 
dignity demanded sulks for a moment. They 
were all wholesomely Anglo-Saxon enough 
to dislike any undue indulgence of emotion. 
And Mr. Gale had, if the truth were known, 
felt a little more emotion at several stages of 
the discussion than was quite comfortable. 
He had been feeling that he and his wife 
had been bearing their heavy burden alone. 
And all at once Youth itself, an exhaustless 
reservoir of power, had offered itself! He 
was rising from the table with that rather 
vague glance arotmd the range of familiar 
objects that one has, for a time, forgotten, 
with which one comes back to the things of 
common day, when Bayard said, low in his 
ear: 


126 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘^Honest, Ancestor, tell me the honest-to- 
goodness truth. If your three noble children 
had voted in a block against the Pathetic 
Postmasters, would you have given them up?'' 

Mr. Gale started — looked indignant — ^wav- 
ered. A look of perfectly absurd conviction 
of guilt fastened itself finally on his face. 
Bayard broke into a laugh of sheer delight. 
Quite ignorant of the cause, they all joined in. 

^'Well, anyway,” Bayard finally was so- 
bered down enough to say, ^‘I’m not going 
to take the position of Atlas supporting the 
earth — not as a permanency.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


** \T OW what are we going to do about 
1 1 Anne and Virginia?’’ 

Bayard sat cozily down beside Philippa. 
He had found her alone on the davenport in 
the living room, gazing drearily into a dying 
j&re. And so, in Bayard’s own manner, he 
set briskly to the rescue. 

Philippa, as was her way when anything 
that hurt was touched upon, looked cross. 

‘‘I don’t care anything about — ” she had 
begtm when Bayard interrupted, laughing 
good-humoredly. 

** Now let’s cut out all the diplomatic notes, 
Pip, and get down to business. You know 
you want to be friends.” 

All at once Philippa’s eyes filled with tears. 
She made no effort to conceal them or wipe 
them away, but just looked dumbly at her 
brother, her wide eyes brimming over. 

Bayard squeezed her hand, but in a brief 
and business-like fashion. 

^‘All right. Now we’ll just sketch out a 
plan of campaign. First item; You’ve tried 
128 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


to get Jeff into the club and failed, making 
Anne and Virginia angry to boot.” 

Philippa nodded, reaching for a handker- 
chief. 

''How about giving up that proposition?” 

Philippa shook her head stubbornly. 

" It isn’t only that I hate to give up having 
my own way,” she explained, frankly, to Bay- 
ard’s clear eyes; "it’s that I told Jeff I’d do 
it. And it doesn’t seem right, now that he’s 
all lamed up and all, to back out.” 

Bayard nodded thoughtfully. And he 
was not acting a part. He was interested. 
He knew how much the two girls meant to 
his little sister. And he was not contented 
to do the easy thing of dismissing the matter 
as merely a childish squabble. With the same 
absorbed interest as when he peered into some 
bit of complex mechanism in order to restore 
a lost contact, he was bent on straightening 
out this muddle. It was not a small thing to 
Philippa. 

"I can see that. But are you sure Jeff, 
himself, wants it?” 

Philippa’s face set itself in stubborn lines. 

"I don’t know whether he does or not. 
But he ought to. He oughtn’t to be by him- 
self so much. He needs — ” 


129 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


That’s the right idea. But, if I remember 
how I felt ’way back there, it wasn’t the 
girls that I wanted to keep me from being 
lonely.” 

^^But he won’t get acquainted with the 
boys! And they don’t seem to understand 
him. And if they wonH play together I 
can’t make them, and it isn’t right for him 
not to be with somebody besides his father 
and—” 

see. You couldn’t boss the boys, but 
you thought you could the girls. And then 
you found you couldn’t?” Bayard’s eyes 
laughed so engagingly that Philippa laughed 
back in spite of herself. ^'But let’s see if we 
can’t find some way out of this that, by yield- 
ing some points that you don’t care very 
much about, will gain what you consider 
really essential. That’s 'diplomacy,’ if you 
want to know it, alias 'compromise’ And 
all of the really clever people like omselves 
resort to it occasionally. Let me tell you, 
yoimg woman” — Bayard fell into an absurd 
declamatory tone — "every really great man, 
who has ever been able to put over any part 
of an ideal, has had to resort to this method. 
Otherwise he bangs his head against a stone 
wall. Lincoln was the most skillful compro- 
130 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


miser the political world has ever seen, as 
well as the greatest idealist. He — ” Here 
he broke off and laughed. ^*But that isn’t 
arranging our program, is it?” 

He had, however, accomplished just what 
he wanted. The sparkle of intelligent in- 
terest, the fascination of a dawning idea, was 
in the face that had been so dull and down- 
cast a minute before. 

‘^Gosh! Let’s arrange it right away,” 
Philippa ejaculated, in businesslike tones. 

^'Pip, I wouldn’t say 'Gosh’ if I were you. 
It doesn’t sound — ” 

"All right, I won’t.” 

"Well and good.” Bayard reached for 
tablet and pencil. "We’ll put down first the 
irreducible minimum.” 

Philippa was looking at him with eyes of 
blank amazement. 

"It’s a shame to unload on you all the 
debating society tricks I know,” Bayard 
confessed, laughing. "What I mean is, 
what you consider absolutely necessary. 
What you can’t give up without hurting 
something deeper than your pride.” 

"'Irreducible minimum.’ I’ll use that on 
Anne and Virginia. Won’t they be sur- 
prised.” Then she considered thoughtfully. 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


do want to help make Jeff feel that people 
like him and want to play with him,” she said 
at last. ^‘And” — at that the quick tears 
came again into her eyes — ”I do want to 
make friends with Anne and Virginia.” 

**0f course you do.” He patted her hand 
softly. ''And I’ll bet they want to make 
friends with you — good and plenty. Take it 
from me: I’ve found that whatever affects 
me usually affects the other fellow, too. 
But they don’t know how to make friends. 
And you don’t, either, without giving up a 
principle that means much to you. That’s 
what we have to find out. There’s just no 
sense at all in holding out just because the 
other fellow doesn’t move first, v It isn't the 
weaker person that moves first in such a case. 
It's the cleverer," 

Philippa’s eyes were sparkling. 

" I see! It’s the one who can think out the 
way.” 

''Just that.” 

"Well, hurry now, while I’ve got you to 
help me. It’s my part to start first because 
they haven’t anyone like you to help them.” 
Philippa nodded complacently. "Anne’s 
brother never pays any attention to her and 
Virginia’s cousins are nuts.” 

132 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


''Pip, it certainly is a comfort that you 
don’t have to be knocked down and trampled 
on before an idea permeates. Some girls 
are such boneheads — especially the pretty 
ones.” Bayard’s gratitude was only slightly 
exaggerated. "Now! How much are you 
willing to give up provided you can accom- 
plish the irreducible minimum?” 

Philippa didn’t have to stop to think. 
"Everything,” she said. 

"Good stuff! Then we can reckon with- 
out relying on Anne’s giving up one single 
thing.” 

Philippa looked doubtful at this. 

"I don’t see why?” she began. 

Knowing that she's doing it^ I mean. 
She’ll stand still, but we will execute a flank 
movement so she’ll have to turn. Suppose 
you give up ^e idea of taking Jeff into that 
special club. He’d never attend it, anyway — 
one boy with a lot of girls! Then start an- 
other and let the first one die if you’re not 
interested in it. Have the real club one for 
boys and girls together. Have the ptupose 
of it something both boys and girls can 
really be interested in. What’s Jeff specially 
strong in?” 

"He knows a lot about the government — 
133 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


about Congress and the President’s powers 
and all that.” 

'' That’s hot stuff! Start a Young Citizens 
club, to discuss the rights and duties of 
citizens. That’s a particularly interesting 
subject here because, while the District has 
the commission form of government and is 
really governed by Congress, there’s a strong 
movement for the suffrage and some other 
form of government. I’m not saying the 
Young Citizens club would be a good thing 
for you kids just because of the Jeff issue, 
understand. There’s nothing that’s more 
necessary than to wake people up every- 
where to take an intelligent interest in the 
way they’re being governed and insist on 
having the voice in local and national affairs 
that they should have. It’s because the 
great majority of our people don’t care any- 
thing about the way the government’s run 
that a lot of corrupt machine politicians are 
running it solely for their own benefit. Look 
at the trouble dad’s having to get a lot of 
poor chaps paid back the money that the 
government practically stole from them! 
Could that happen if the kind of men were 
in Congress that would be there if they 
really represented all the people? It makes 
134 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


me sick to think we’ve got about seventy-five 
per cent of do-nothing fatheads in this coun- 
try throwing away the suffrage it took — 
beginning back where the struggle for it 
really began, in England — centuries to gain! 
And that is true because they haven’t been 
trained from the beginning to use intelli- 
gently the weapon they’ve got right in their 
hands. So let’s begin from the beginning, 
right here, to train ourselves. How about 
the Young Citizens idea?” 

‘'Oh, Bayard, it’s just what I’d like! But 
I don’t know how to start it.” 

"Have a party.” 

"I’d love a party. But I don’t think that 
I ought to ask mother. We’re not going to 
ask her for anything unnecessary because — 
you know — until the bill passes.” 

"That’s all right. I’ve got a little money 
of my own. Made it tutoring. If it was a 
lot of men, now, that we wanted to get hold 
of, it would have to be a dinner. Then I 
would have to go down into my jeans. But 
if I remember my distant youth, a gallon or 
so of ice cream and some cakes and some- 
body’s house make a party.” 

"Oh yes! Sometimes we have cocoa 
instead of ice cream.” 


10 


135 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


“Oh, Age of Innocence! You make me 
feel like a battered man of the world. Not 
that cocoa isn’t good stuff. See that you 
save me some ice cream if I’m here. I’ll fix 
it up with mother and father. This is going 
to be just too easy. That Morgan kid and 
Lawrence Tracy made me promise I’d coach 
their team this morning. I’m due there in a 
few minutes. They’re frightfully impressed 
with my condescension — Si member of a real 
’varsity team — so it ’ll be just the chance to 
put ’em wise to the Jeff situation. You’ll 
see they’ll cry for him. Now that's fixed up. 
Oh, wait a minute, there’s mother. It’s all 
right, muzz.” Mrs. Gale’s face appeared 
'at the door. “I’m going to get those plugs 
just as soon as I finish showing the kids some 
simple passes — football. We’ll have those 
cellar lights on this evening. ’By, Pip. I’ll 
stop on my way home and see what the X-ray 
sharps say about your woimded friend.” 

And, whistling, Bayard made his deliberate 
progress out of the house. 


CHAPTER XV 


B ut Philippa did not have to wait until 
Bayard came home to know about Jeff. 
About eleven o’clock she was called up on the 
phone. It was Mr. Randolph. 

Jeff wants to know if you can come over.” 
''When?” Philippa’s heart was beating 
hard. 

"The sooner the better, I should say.” 
"All right. What did the—?” But Mr. 
Randolph had hung up. 

"Did his voice sound glad or sorry?” 
Philippa wondered, as she walked the short 
distance to the Randolphs’ big Colonial 
house. "I couldn’t tell. It just sounded 
excited.” She, herself, must have been a 
little excited, for by the time the wooden- 
faced maid had opened the door for her her 
knees were trembling. Philippa’s imagina- 
tion, sometimes an asset, was often a painful 
liability. She had rehearsed all sorts of 
scenes before she got to the door of Jeff’s 
room. Jeff had been told that his leg couldn’t 
137 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


be cured — ^it would have to be amputated. 
He wanted her to help him bear the blow. 
Perhaps they would want her to hold his 
hand while it was being done. 

'‘I can’t do that. I want to help, but I 
can’t do that, ” she was saying, with her hand 
on the knob. Her round face was actually 
white and her eyes were full of sensitive 
tears. 

It was a very jolly-faced boy who faced 
her when she opened the door. And Mr. 
Randolph came smiling from the adjoining 
room which was his study. Jeff was propped 
up high in the bed; his crimson dressing 
gown was a gorgeous bit of color. On a 
stand by the bed was a green-and-gold china 
bowl full of ruddy fruit, and a tall cake with 
icing an inch thick. There was also a big 
box which Philippa’s prophetic soul knew 
contained candy. There were some in- 
teresting-looking fish-hooks. Altogether, if it 
was true that Jeff was to be a helpless invalid 
for life, it was evident that he was prepared 
to enjoy his invalidism. 

His black eyes were brilliant with anima- 
tion and his wide grin rivaled Bayard’s 
special pattern. 

“The doctor guy got here early — two of 
138 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


’em,” he rattled off in a conspicuously off- 
hand manner, as soon as his father had gone 
back to his study. ''And their old machine 
showed ’em there wasn’t anything more 
than a tom ligament the matter with me. 
Father arranged so they could develop the 
picture and print it right away. It was really 
pretty good fun; they explained the whole 
business to me. So to-morrow they’re coming 
to do my leg up in a plaster thing. I’ll have 
to keep still for about a week and then I can 
hobble around a little if I keep the cast on 
and don’t bend my leg at all and am very 
careful. But then it’s their long suit to tell 
you to be 'careful.’ And now — oh, would 
you mind ringing? They’re going to bring 
something up as soon as I ring for it. Father 
said I could have anything I wanted to help 
celebrate. I couldn’t really enjoy Thanks- 
giving dinner with this thing hanging over.” 
Then, as he heard steps coming, he gabbled 
hurriedly and siureptitiously: "I wanted 
you to know it first. You’ve — ^you’ve been 
dandy, I thought we’d have a little party 
all to ourselves.” 

The wooden-faced maid appeared carrying 
a platter on which was a mold of the most 
wonderful ice cream. Philippa could see 
139 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


that the creamy part had marrons in it, and 
she closed her eyes in ecstasy. She did so 
love marrons in ice cream. And there were 
strawberry and chocolate, too — ^just the mix- 
ture she liked best. 

The impassivity of the wooden-faced maid 
was broken for a minute as she saw Philippa’s 
face; something like a smile twitched at the 
corners of her mouth. Then Philippa felt 
still more happy. She was so used to Mollie, 
who shared in all the family interests, that the 
properly trained domestic automaton filled 
her with discomfort. It seemed horrid to 
have people do things for you who were not 
fond of you. 

The ice cream was set down on the stand 
by the cake. Plates and forks were produced, 
supplemented with spoons at Jeff’s order. 
Then the maid withdrew and the two children 
were left to themselves, with no grown-ups 
to be scandalized at the amoimt they ate. 

Jeff insisted on showing how well he could 
serve. He cut huge slabs of the cream for 
them both and then equally wide wedges of 
cake. For a few minutes there was little 
conversation save, This is the best ice cream 
I ever did eat,” and, ”Say, this caterer is 
some bird, I’ll tell the world,” and, '‘Are you 

140 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


ready for some more yet?” It would have 
been sheer affectation for either one to have 
pretended to be interested in anything more 
than the feast, so they both gave their un- 
divided attention to it. 

^'Gosh! I’m glad it was lunch time, so I 
could eat a lot!” Philippa breathed fer- 
vently. But her tone, slightly reminiscent, 
showed that the end of her capacity was 
almost reached. A bland, reminiscent pleas- 
ure, however, overspread her countenance, 

” Can’t you eat any more?” urged Jeff, 
anxiously. Oh, come I Just a little more 1 ” 
But Philippa shook her head decisively. 

^'Then we’ll have to send what’s left down- 
stairs,” Jeff said, with acute regret. *‘I don’t 
believe I can eat any more, either — dam it! 
It’s almost a religious duty' to stuff on an 
occasion like this.” Jeff laughed the jolly 
laugh that Philippa had never heard before. 
It seemed as if an altogether new boy was 
being introduced to her; she had never seen 
anything quite as enlivening as the way his 
white teeth flashed out. And the thick, thick 
hair of silky black, with a wave in it now that 
it had grown a little long during his illness so 
the obstinate curl could be seen, made her 
want to smooth and pat it just as she did her 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


kitten’s soft coat. The tiny white line of 
parting was just the dividing line between 
two plushy waves. With his sparkling eyes 
and the rich splash of color of his dressing 
gown, he was Festivity itself. 

‘‘^^Gosh! Anne and Virginia don’t know 
what they’re missing just because they were 
so mean to him ! ’ ’ Philippa thought. Had she 
been a story-book kind of a girl that thought 
would imdoubtedly have been accompanied 
by a wave of sorrowful regret. But such was 
not the case. She felt, instead, a distinct 
exhilaration of spirits at the thought of the 
righteous retribution that had overtaken her 
two false friends, who had made her feel so 
lonesome and imhappy during the past 
weeks. And she prepared to enjoy herself 
still more. 

When the maid had taken the remnants 
away — and even her eye had a distinct gleam 
in it as she saw how much was left — ^Jeff 
took the cover off the box of candy. It was 
from a house that Philippa knew only by 
reputation — a very prince of candy makers. 
At this stage of the feast she was able to en- 
joy in a leisurely fashion the artistic effect 
of the color scheme before she made her first 
choice. With the chocolate butter-cream in 

142 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Ker hand she paused luxuriously after the 
first nibble. 

^^Did the X-ray man hurt you?” she 
asked. 

''Not a bit. It was just tedious and, you 
know, uncertain while I waited. I’ll give you 
my word I almost hugged the doctor when he 
came in to tell me. I’ve got the photograph 
here. Want to see it? ” 

Philippa nodded eagerly. But the minute 
afterward she said: "I don’t see how they 
tell anything from ihaL It’s just cloudy and 
streaked to me.” 

"The darkest parts are the bones, you 
know.” 

"The bones? Gosh! I’d like to have an 
X-ray taken of my bones.” 

"Why?” 

"It’s the only way I ever will see them.” 

Jeff surveyed her. 

"They are pretty well covered, for a fact,” 
Jeff said, candidly. Then they both laughed 
uproariously. Then, refreshed, they re- 
turned with zeal to the candy and the X-ray 
photographs. 

"Those scientific sharks know so well how 
your bones and muscles and all ought to look 
that they can tell what’s out of whack as 
143 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


soon as they look at the pictures. You’d 
never think that little undecided line there 
meant that a tendon was broken, would you? 
Well, it does, and it’s no joke. Now they’ll 
do me up in a cast and nobody can tell just 
how long it will be. But in a week I can get 
aroimd. So I should worry.” 

‘'Oh, then we won’t have the party imtil 
you can come!” Philippa said, joyfully. 
“And that ’ll be ever so much better. We 
can get the club started just right.” 

‘ ‘ Club ? ” Jeff’s face became dismal. ‘ ‘ Oh, 
say, Philippa, let’s cut that out. I came 
because you wanted me to. But, honest, 
I’d rather — There are just about a million 
things I’d rather do than try that over 
again.” 

“Oh, not that old club.” Philippa’s tone 
was highly contemptuous. “I’ll tell you.” 
Only waiting to choose some luscious nougat, 
she told him about Bayard’s idea. 

“You said something when you said that,” 
Jeff commented. “I’ll come in. And I’ll 
tell the world it’s needed. Why, back home, 
father would as soon let his property be 
sold for taxes as not vote. And a bimch of 
them got the whole district so heated up 
about being real citizens — ^beginning the cam- 
144 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

paign at the schoolhouses and having us all 
take home printed stuff — that about seventy- 
five per cent registered at the polls. Voted, 
too, what’s more. It seemed like an awful 
dead place when we came here, without elec- 
tions or anything. Look here! Suppose you 
and I make out a slate now and a program. 
I’ve got a pencil and a writing pad ready. 
Who are the real, sure-enough live boys and 
girls here? Perhaps it’s just because I 
haven’t got acquainted yet that they seem 
like such dead ones.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


A WEEK after Thanksgiving Bayard had 
gone back to college and Mr. and Mrs. 
Gale sat alone in the little upstairs den. 

‘‘It's quiet again downstairs." Mr. Gale 
put his book down and listened. “ They must 
be laimching the Great Project." 

‘‘Philippa must have taken my advice to 
spring it on them after they had been fed." 

“So that's your strategy, is it? Whenever 
the dinner is especially good I'll have to be 
on my guard. And I had always considered 
you rather a guileless person." 

They both laughed comfortably. They 
had reached the pleasant stage when most 
small flings at each other were stingless. 
Then they were startled by a burst of 
applause. 

“Somebody's putting through what he 
wants," Mr. Gale said. “It's rather sur- 
prising to find how much I'm hoping it is 
Our Party." 

“I'm beginning to like the boy for his own 
146 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


sake. He certainly seems to like being aroimd 
the house with us here. It’s amazing how a 
smile transforms that dark face of his.” 

They had been talking of other things for 
a time when the soimd of tramping feet and 
of laughter in the hall downstairs warned 
them that the party was breaking up. Soon 
Philippa ran upstairs to them. One glance 
at her bright face showed them that all was 
well even before the torrent of words broke 
on them. 

^‘Everything’s just fine. Anne and Vir- 
ginia are as pleased as anything. It just 
seems too funny to think of all the fuss that 
was made about Jeff before. I guess as soon 
as they really associated with Jeff they found 
out how nice he is. You see, he was the one 
who made the speech about the club; we 
fixed that all up. And everybody was as 
meek as anything, and Lawrence Tracy made 
the motion to have the club, and James Mor- 
gan proposed Jeff for president, even though 
Jeff did look too funny for anything, having 
to have his leg straight out in front of him 
when he sat down. But he knew exactly 
what to say and he didn’t stammer and 
stumble aroimd saying it. So I guess they 
begin to realize that Jeff amoimts to some- 
147 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


thing, after all, and they don’t have to have 
him in our club just because they are sorry 
about his leg. The sorry would wear out, 
anyway, because his leg is going to be all 
right soon.” Philippa stopped to laugh and 
get her breath. ^'And the party was just 
great. I must write to Bayard about it ; and 
thank you ever and ever so much, mother ’n' 
father. And now I think I’d better go to 
bed, because I really am tired.” 

She kissed them a rapturous good night. 
In what seemed no more than a minute from 
the time she left she called her mother for 
the usual going-to-bed ceremony. When 
Mrs. Gale bent over her to tuck her into bed 
and give her the last kiss that neither of 
them would ever have been satisfied to go 
without, the child said, coaxingly: 

‘‘Won’t you just leave the door of the den 
open so I can hear your voices? ” 

“But why, dear? I’m afraid it would 
distiub you.” 

“No, I don’t think it would. It’s so cozy 
to hear the nice mum-mum of your voices 
and know that you are awake and — Gloving 
me. And I’m so happy to-night — ^and I 
guess I’m sort of excited — I’m afraid I’ll get 
to thinking too much and lie awake. And 
148 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

then, when I lie awake, thoughts get all 
different and — scary.” 

''All right, sweetheart. We’ll leave the 
doors open, and in just about two minutes 
you’ll be soimd asleep.” 

When she went back to her husband she 
said: 

"Odd, isn’t it, how Philippa, sturdy as she 

is, has these fits of wakefulness. Her imagi- 
nation must rim away with her sometimes. 
Although she never tells me anything about 

it, I know that she is afraid of some of the 
thoughts that come to her, alone in the dark. 
I’ll have to get down underneath a little 
more. Sometimes children have morbid 
terrors at night that they are ashamed to 
tell anyone about, and that grow because 
they are not told. I remember that I did.” 

"But surely Philippa would tell us; we 
certainly have her confidence.” 

"I hope so. But children often have 
strange comers in their minds to which 
grown-ups — even loved ones — never pene- 
trate. If I remember, I was desperately 
afraid older people would laugh at my own 
half -formed fears and fancies. Doreen, calm 
as she has always seemed, has told me lately 
of the most extraordinary thoughts that 
149 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

were going on in her mind. But then Doreen 
has always been my very own child, more 
like me; so perhaps it is easier for her to con- 
fide in me. Philippa has always had an alien 
strain; sometimes I have to guess at her mo- 
tives. So when I realize that Doreen, normal 
and placid as she seemed at the time, Uved 
in a world at times that we knew nothing 
of, I—” 

‘‘But Philippa — ’’ Thus went on the dis- 
cussion of the ever-fascinating subject of 
their children, calculated to last all night if 
prudence did not put an end to it. They 
finally paused long enough to realize that it 
was nearly one o’clock in the morning. 
Guiltily they switched off the light and crept 
to their room. Mrs. Gale, passing Philippa’s 
room, peeped in. The child lay still on her 
peaceful moonht bed, her eyes closed, evi- 
dently soimd asleep. 


CHAPTER XVII 


B ut Philippa was not asleep. After her 
mother left the room she opened her 
eyes and stared straight ahead of her. It 
was a long time after that before she finally 
dropped to sleep. 

When her mother came in to waken her 
the next morning she kept her eyes closed, 
although she knew that Mrs. Gale was stand- 
ing by her bed. She felt that her mother 
paused by her bed indecisively. Then came 
her voice. 

^'Do you want to sleep a little longer, 
dear? You may. It’s Saturday.” 

Then Philippa opened her eyes. But she 
didn’t look squarely at her mother. 

'^No, I think I’d better get up now.” As 
Mrs. Gale turned to go Philippa asked, sud- 
denly, 'Hs there any dark man related to 
me who might give me a lot of money?” 

* * ^ Dark man ? ’ You have been dreaming. ’ ’ 
”No. It was in a fortune — ^the way the 
cards came. And I wondered.” 

151 


11 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Mrs. Gale had a curious feeling that Phi- 
lippa was looking at her as if she were seeing 
her mother for the first time — ^inspecting 
her. It made her imeasy. And it annoyed 
her to have the child’s mind dwelling too 
much on money. So she answered, teasingly : 

^^If any one of the relatives has a fortime 
to leave, you may be sure there are children 
in plenty to leave it to. Perhaps you are 
thinking of Uncle Charles. But he isn’t 
thirty yet. And I rather suspect he is think- 
ing of getting married. As for any black- 
bearded pirate having buried treasime, I 
don’t know of any nook or cranny about the 
premises where the key to buried treasure 
can have been hidden. As a matter of fact, 
we had the place all spaded up last spring, 
you remember, and resodded.” 

More than an hour later Mrs. Gale foimd 
the child curled up in a comer of the daven- 
port, staring straight ahead, although there 
was a book in her lap. 

''Is there something bothering you, dear?” 
Mrs. Gale asked, lightly. "Or are you still 
dreaming about the dark man? Maybe it’s 
M. d’Aillebout.” She patted the hand that 
lay listlessly on her little girl’s lap. 

"No.” Philippa’s tone was sullen and 
152 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

she shrugged her shoulder a little farther 
away. 

^‘If this is just a case of the dumps or bad 
temper, Philippa, you know, yourself, how 
foolish you are to indulge it. You are wast- 
ing — worse than wasting — ^what might be a 
happy day.” Mrs. Gale spoke gently, but 
firmly, too. '‘There are all your Saturday 
chores not touched, too — room to put in 
order, stockings to dam. And then there 
is all this brisk, sunshiny day, with Anne 
and Virginia friends again. I should think 
that in itself was enough to make you 
happy. Don’t you think you are being very 
foolish?” 

Philippa raised her eyes to her mother’s. 
Mrs. Gale had again the impression that she 
was being inspected as if she had been a 
stranger, neither antagonistically nor affec- 
tionately, but with ciuiosity — a curious wist- 
fulness, too. 

"I did think I was going to be perfectly 
happy when Anne had made up,” Philippa 
said at last, in a low tone. "Perhaps I’m 
being foolish. But I don’t seem to be able 
to help it.” 

"You don’t know whether you can help 
it or not. You are not trying.” Mrs. Gale 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


was losing patience. “This is something no 
one else can do for you.” 

She jumped up. Philippa sat stupidly 
still. Her eyes followed her mother. She 
had a feeling of confusion, as if she had lost 
something. She wanted help, but didn’t 
know how to ask for it. 

“Just shake yourself out of your mood, 
dear, and get about something,” her mother 
encouraged her. 

“All right, I will.” As she passed her 
mother at the door she put out her hand and 
touched her mother’s arm clingingly. 

A few minutes later she had forgotten the 
fear that had been making her happy, accus- 
tomed life seem unreal and mocking. A note 
had come from Madame d’Aillebout that 
concerned her. 

Will you not to allow us [she wrote Mrs. Gale] an 
evening of the presence of your little daughter? To 
my son, the little Jean, and to my husband she has 
afforded, with her bobsleigh, an afternoon of pleasure. 
The little Jean he think her to be of a greatness su- 
preme because she belong to the eighth grade of the 
Clifton Park school. He will be transported with 
pleasure to have her to dine with us the approaching 
Sunday at an early hour for the children. 

I have not yet made the visits in to my friends of 
America because I mourn for my brother, who was so 
young to die in battle, and for so many of my rela- 

154 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


lives and friends. But I would wish well that you, my 
dear madame, would visit me. I am often of a lone- 
liness, which le bon Dieu knows. 

‘^Oh, mother, I can go, can’t I? I have 
my blue dress and everything.” I liked the 
French gentleman so much. He is such a 
jolly man. And Jean is the funniest Uttle 
thing — so solemn — like an owl.” 

'*1 see no reason why you shouldn’t,” Mrs. 
Gale said, thoughtfully. She was wondering. 
Should she tell Philippa that the '‘jolly” 
Frenchman was, in his own coimtry, a coimt 
and of the old nobility. "No, I won’t,” she 
thought. "It might prevent Philippa from 
being the simple, friendly little girl she would 
otherwise be, not being used to coimts in this 
country.” 

At a few minutes to six the next afternoon 
Philippa was taken by Mr. Gale to the door 
of the stately Trenholm place. To his sur- 
prise it was M. d’Aillebout who opened the 
door. D’Aillebout greeted Philippa’s father 
jovially. 

"You see that I am my own garQon'^ he 
said. "In America we like all things but the 
domestics. To-day they have every one left 
us. There remains only the old bonne of le 
petit Jean who is come with us. Bon! We 
155 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


will have by that a so much better dinner. 
Will you not enter, monsieur? Non? Then 
I will conduct Mees Phileeppa to madame.” 

^'Madame,” a tall, graceful presence arose 
when Philippa entered, putting down some 
delicate embroidery on a little work-table 
beside her. Her black gown had a certain 
beautiful austerity that threw into relief her 
white skin and deep-blue eyes. 

'‘I am content to see the leetle” — she was 
speaking slowly and with great effort. ' ' Com- 
ment — ” She turned and poured a flood of 
French into her husband’s ear. 

'“Friend of Jean.’ That is what you 
would say,” laughed M. d’Aillebout. "But 
it would be bettaire that you allow me to 
speak for you,” he said. "You have not yet 
enough words of English to converse under- 
standably.” And he laughed as if that were 
a great joke. 

'' Maisy I wish to sank Mees Phileeppa zat 
she ’ave so moche oj plaisir given to mon 
petit Jean'' she persisted, smiling with much 
sweetness. 

"But where is thees Jean?” asked M. 
d’Aillebout. "Eet ees the hour of dinner. 
Then he too talked in his own language, evi- 
dently questioning his wife. Philippa caught 
156 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


the name, ''Schwartz,” a German-American 
family of the Park. 

She nodded her head. 

** Mais out. But yes, he was wit’ that 
boy,” she said. "And I do not know what 
they do.” She was evidently nervous and 
distressed, but her courtesy would not allow 
her to make her yoimg guest uncomfortable. 
"He will soon come,” she said, cheerfully. 

Then, with enormous effort she tried to tell 
Philippa how great had been the help ren- 
dered her country in its dire need by the 
great, good, and compassionate '^VAme~ 
rique'^; how it was because of the brave 
"Sammies” that her country had not lost 
their all. "My ’usban’, he not be wit’ me 
zis day eef — ” Her eyes filled with tears 
and she bent over her embroidery to hide 
them. 

His face tender instead of jolly, the 
French officer evidently tried to calm his 
wife. And Philippa, child as she was, had 
a glimpse of the long years of strain and fear 
and suffering through which these people had 
lived. It brought the Great War nearer to 
her than anything else had done, for Bayard 
and all the boys she knew had been too yoimg 
to enlist and the fathers too old. 

157 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


At that moment they heard a brisk alter- 
cation in the hall. M. d’Aillebout chuckled. 

‘ ' Brigitte ! ” he said. ^ ' And vair moche 
excited.” 

‘^Jean!” said madame, heaving a sigh of 
relief. 

But when the door opened and a stout, 
middle-aged woman, her cap and apron 
awry, appeared, holding a squirming small 
boy by the shoulder, the father and mother 
looked positively frightened. In truth, it 
was difficult to be sure, in that first glimpse, 
that Jean had not been trampled underfoot, 
or dragged by a runaway horse, through 
coal dust, or knocked down by a motor, so 
indescribably black and grimy did he ap- 
pear, and so battered. His hands were as 
black as any negro’s; his black hair hung 
over his face in wild disorder ; his black eyes 
looked out from a black-streaked face. The 
heir of the D’Aillebouts looked uncommonly 
like a chimney sweep. 

Brigitte gave him a little push toward the 
center of the room and then poured forth a 
flood of language, illustrated by heat-lightning 
gestures, which it required no knowledge of 
the tongue she spoke to know expressed the 
deepest dissatisfaction — ^more, disgust — with 
is8 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


the adventurous Jean. When she finally 
had to stop for breath M. d’Aillebout 
said: 

'‘But, my son, what is it that you have 
done to present such an appearance of 
yourself? ” 

Brigitte, having let off steam, displayed 
the liveliest interest in what Jean might 
answer. She poised her hands on her hips 
and waited. When he began to speak Eng- 
lish she was plainly disgusted. 

“ Hermann Schwartz had a splendid chance 
to put in some coal and he said he would let 
me go in with him.” 

“‘Put in some coal?’” the French gentle- 
man asked, blankly. 

“I should say we did put it in.” Jean was 
so far recovered from his embarrassment as 
to let a boastful tone come into his voice. 
“Six tons of it. At seventy-five cents a ton. 
We divided fifty-fifty.” 

“At — What is it that you are saying? 
You cannot mean that you have taken 
money for putting one of your American 
neighbor’s coal into his cellar!” The horror 
in M. d’Aillebout’s face was mixed with 
some other emotion — the surprise — ^the ad- 
miration that is almost fear with which one 
159 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


contemplates an achievement of a wild ad- 
venturing into unknown fields. 

'‘You bet! All American boys earn 
money.” With what he fondly fancied was 
an American swagger Jean endeavored to 
ram his hands down into his pockets. But 
at that prospect of further damage to his 
clothes Brigitte darted forward and seized 
the hands, pouring forth again a flood of 
sound utterly unintelligible to Philippa. 

Evidently she had madame’s gentle con- 
sent to take Jean from the, room, for she 
turned to go. 

“And the dinner, Brigitte — le diner?'' 

There was reassurance in her tone and 
soon she was at the door again, all smiles. 
As they rose to go to dinner, M. d’Aillebout 
said: 

“Jean is becoming so American that it is 
to make one wonder.” His tone and face 
expressed such mixed emotions, as did that 
of his wife, that Philippa did not know 
whether they were more delighted or morti- 
fied at Jean’s enterprise. They evidently 
did not want to express their true opinion, 
for fear they might criticize the native 
customs. 

But with perfect courtesy they put the 
i6o 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


disagreeable aside and tried to make their 
young guest at home. Philippa could appre- 
ciate how kindly was their tact. And, 
naturally, it required some tact to make 
conversation at a dinner where the guest did 
not speak the language of the hosts at all, 
and where one of the hosts spoke her language 
with effort and the other very little. But it 
was evident both M. and Mme. d’Aillebout 
were very anxious to practice English. Ma- 
dame was very anxious to learn about the 
way Americans lived. It was evident that 
she had come to the country in a high state 
of emotion concerning everything in it. 
She had had some rude shocks, but she was 
still trying hard to prove that the country 
and its people were perfect in all respects. 
But every time she mentioned the servants 
it was with a childlike grief that she could 
have been so badly treated. 

“If we had not had Brigitte,” she began, 
and, her English failing her, made an elo- 
quent gesture that said more than words 
could have done. “It is for that she is so 
faithful, that she is — what you call gate?" 

^''Gater^ is, I think, in English to indulge, 
‘to spoil’?” Monsieur turned to Philippa, 
questioningly. 

i6i 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘'Oh yes, just what mother says we do 
to Mollie because she has been with us always 
and was my murse,” said Philippa, eagerly. 

“Oh, then, eet ees some like that in 
VAmerique?'' There was an expression of 
dawning hope upon Madame’s face. “Bri- 
gitte has been for le petit Jean the honne — 
the ‘nurse,’ you say? I do wish vair’ moche 
zat I know to spik bettaire yoiu* langue, I 
have such love for the countree zat ’ave 
save’ — ” Her lips trembled. Evidently she 
was very emotional. She began to talk 
rapidly, fervently, using an occasional word 
that Philippa imderstood, but, as a whole, 
utterly unintelligible. “Ees eet not as I 
’ave said?” she appealed, finally, to her 
husband. 

“My dear,” he said, with htimorous de- 
spair. “I have not imderstood one word 
that you have been saying during the last 
five minutes.” 

The dinner, served by the now smiling 
Brigitte, was simple but delightfully cooked, 
with many flavors that were entirely new to 
Philippa, and with delicious sauces that made 
it hard for a child with her sturdy appetite 
not to be actually greedy. Several delicate 
morsels were taken away from her when she 

162 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

stopped to answer one of madame’s ques- 
tions. And this loss she secretly mourned. 
Jean appeared only for dessert, immaculate 
and not at all subdued. Evidently he had 
been given his dinner elsewhere, for Philippa 
was convinced he could not have displayed 
such a polite indifference to food had his 
appetite not been already satisfied. 

After dinner they went back to the draw- 
ing-room, where coffee was served and M. 
d’Aillebout smoked a cigarette or so. Phi- 
lippa, immensely flattered by being offered 
coffee with the grown-ups, swallowed a 
mouthful or so clear, trying not to show how 
much she disliked the taste. Madame’s 
white hands fascinated her as the needle flew 
endlessly in and out of her embroidery. 

*'They make being busy so pretty, some- 
how,” was the thought in her mind. M. 
d’Aillebout, also, made a very gallant matter, 
somehow, of smoking a cigarette, his boyish 
smile flashing at them every other minute, 
from under the jaimty little black mustache. 

‘'He seems to have so much time to be 
agreeable,” Philippa commented to herself. 
“And it seems important to him to enter- 
tain us.” Jean, after several respectful 
questions of Philippa about the habits and 

163 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


customs of the eighth grade, subsided into 
a very quiet small boy. His American 
brusqueness dropped from him. He brought 
a footstool close to his mother’s side and, 
his head on her lap, gazed owlishly into the 
fire until his eyelids began to droop. Then, 
at a quiet word from Madame d’Aillebout, 
he kissed both his parents good night, 
bowed solemnly to Philippa, and left the 
room. 

When Mr. Gale came for Philippa and was 
held a few minutes by the eager hospitality 
of the D’Aillebouts, Philippa had a sudden 
realization of how different her father was 
from the French officer. It was not only 
that M. d’Aillebout was dark where daddy 
was fair, or that the French officer’s face was 
rounded where Mr. Gale’s seemed to have, 
instead of curves, taut lines that told of con- 
centrated purpose. M. d’Aillebout looks so 
rested and daddy so tired,” was Philippa’s 
conclusion. And it gave her an uneasy sen- 
sation for a moment. '' M. d’Aillebout must 
have had a very easy time,” was the way she 
explained it. 

On their way home they had walked some 
minutes in silence when Mr. Gale said: 

‘'You wouldn’t think that man had fought 
164 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


all through the war ; had been badly wounded 
more than once; had seen his estate in the 
north of France devastated; had lost prac- 
tically his whole family with the exception of 
his wife and son; and is noted for his desper- 
ate bravery. And he looks Hke a boy and 
apparently hasn’t a care in the world. I 
wonder how he does it! You said he enjoyed 
coasting as much as you did, didn’t you?” 

'‘He seemed to have the best time of any- 
one on the hill,” Philippa said, eagerly. 
“Oh, daddy, won’t you come with us the 
next time there’s coasting? Perhaps it would 
rest you, too.” 

“Perhaps it would,” Mr. Gale said, 
thoughtfully. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to 
wait tmtil I put the Post Office cases through 
before I play again.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


I T was in keeping with that perversity of 
things to which one never becomes wholly 
accustomed that Philippa should have chosen 
the next Monday morning to inaugiurate her 
annual fever about Christmas presents. Usu- 
ally it showed itself earlier, the day after 
Thanksgiving being the normal starting 
point. But the excitement over Jeff and the 
new club had postponed it this year. 

Moreover, there was a difference in the 
symptoms. Ordinarily its onset was accom- 
panied by dancing eyes and radiant face. 
So this morning, when she fixed her eyes 
suspiciously on Mrs. Gale and demanded, 
rather than asked, that her allowance, being 
saved for her by her mother, be paid so she 
could begin to do her shopping, Mrs. Gale 
recognized the inexplicable mood of the 
Saturday before. She foimd that she was 
bracing herself to meet a struggle of some 
kind — she hardly knew what. 

To tell the truth, this was a highly incon- 

i66 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

venient " demand to be made that ’ day. 
Philippa’s allowance, scrupiilotisly saved, 
vdth occasional small windfalls in the way of 
gifts from various loving relatives, by this 
time amounted to a good deal. Philippa’s 
extravagance at Christmas was really a 
scandal. But it was such a wild joy to her 
to spend royally on others what she had 
saved for the whole year, that nobody had 
the heart to take the pleasure away from 
her. In this case, she had something more 
than twenty-five dollars coming to her. 
And it was not easy for her mother to deduct 
that amoimt from her housekeeping allow- 
ance at that moment. 

‘‘Suppose you wait a few days, Philippa,” 
she said, guardedly. She did not wish to 
disillusionize her daughter by allowing her 
to understand that the “saved” sum was not 
reposing in a special safe, intact and invio- 
lable. “You don’t really know yet what you 
want to buy, do you?” 

Again Philippa’s eyes narrowed, suspi- 
ciously and searchingly. And her face 
darkened. 

“Hasn’t Doreen had her allowance? And 
hasn’t Bayard had his?” she asked, almost 
defiantly. She was showing a jealous spirit 
12 167 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


that was most tmusual with her. Mrs. Gale 
exchanged a puzzled look with her husband. 

‘'Why, certainly Doreen has had her al- 
lowance,” Mr. Gale took up the dialogue. 
“But, if you remember, you asked your 
mother to keep yours for you.” 

“ But I was to have it when I asked for it,” 
she contested, stubbornly. “And I think I 
ought to be treated like the others.” 

“Philippa!” Mr. Gale said, sternly. But 
his wife shook her head wamingly. She had 
an intuition that there was something hurting 
the child, some misunderstanding which they 
hadn’t guessed. It wasn’t a mere case of 
ugly temper. And Mr. Gale now saw that 
his daughter was looking at him with a pite- 
ously defensive sort of appeal in her eyes. 
And the tears seemed very near the siuface. 
So he explained painstakingly: 

“Sometimes it isn’t convenient to produce 
money immediately. Your allowance has 
been put in the bank with all of the family 
money, and just now there is very little 
there. Mother finds it hard, sometimes, you 
know, to make her household allowance 
stretch over all the food and clothes and all 
the other things the family needs. You don’t 
want to add to her worries, I’m sure.” 

1 68 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Then Philippa’s face flushed with a gener- 
ous regret. 

''Oh, I didn’t mean — Of course it’s all 
right. I know mother always does every- 
thing she can for us. I’m so sorry — I’m 
always doing something bad.” And the 
threatened tears spilled over. 

"Oh, that's all right,” Mr. Gale said, in as 
easy-going and comfortable a tone as he 
could manage. "Perhaps you’d just like to 
begin your shopping. I can help you out a 
little. Would five dollars be any good?” 

But the child backed away from the out- 
stretched hand as though it held blood money. 

"Oh no!" she protested. "I wotildn’t 
take it for anything^ now. I know you and 
mother do just everything you can.” She 
was hurrying out of the room, her face turned 
away. "You’re just as good to me as if — ” 
The door shut and the sentence was never 
finished. 

Whatever it was that was troubling Phi- 
lippa she had forgotten it by the time she 
got to school. Anne was waiting for her out 
in the playground, and a moment later Vir- 
ginia came hurrying up, out of breath in her 
eagerness to overtake them. 

"It’s almost worth while having had Anne 
169 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


angry with me to have so much fun being 
friends again,” Philippa thought as, arms 
around one another’s waists, they walked 
around the block because it wasn’t quite 
time for school. They all had to tell every- 
thing that had happened since Saturday 
afternoon. All the weeks when they had 
not been together they said nothing about! 
Each listened to the others mainly so the 
others would listen to her. Philippa’s glow- 
ing account of her dinner at the D’Aillebouts 
was completely thrown into the shade by 
Anne’s superior information as to the position 
of the French family. She enlightened Phi- 
lippa concerning M. d’Aillebout’s title and 
glories generally, and also contended that 
Madame d’Aillebout was related to the Bel- 
gian royal family. In some way the fact that 
she knew these things made her far more 
distinguished than Philippa, who had merely 
dined with nobility. Anne was like that. 

''And somehow she always puts it over,” 
Philippa fumed inwardly. She had a highly 
dramatic account to give of the dinner and 
it grieved her to have it wasted. There 
wasn’t time to get it all in before school, so 
she wouldn’t begin. However, it was good 
even to be irritated with Anne and Virginia. 

170 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Philippa was very little at home the rest 
of the week, except to eat and sleep. In a 
frenzy of renewed friendship it was necessary 
that the girls should study together every 
evening. And that had been done alternately 
at Anne's and Virginia’s. When, Friday 
morning before leaving, Philippa said: 
‘'May we have the living room and make 
fudge this evening, muzz?” Mrs. Gale con- 
sented with genuine pleasure. She sighed 
with satisfaction to feel that her young 
daughter’s troubles were over and that the 
old order of things was re-established. Prob- 
ably that was what had made her seem so 
odd occasionally. 

The living-room fire, too, seemed to re- 
joice that the three friends were together 
again ; it burned with admirable perseverance 
and didn’t once sulk; every time a log was 
disciplined, it turned its cheerful “other 
cheek” to them and blazed up enthusiasti- 
cally. 

Anne’s demeanor was brisk and self-con- 
fident, as usual. Apparently she was troubled 
by no sentimental recollections of the last 
cozy evening they had had together in the 
friendly room. But Virginia clung to Phi- 
lippa a moment when she greeted her. Then 
171 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


she sat down at the piano. The significant 
smile that she directed at Philippa indicated 
that Virginia again was ^‘saying it in music” 
and that the confidence was meant just for 
the two of them. The little melody had a 
hint of sadness in its opening minor strains. 
But it rippled into brightness and ended with 
a joyous, tripping, dance measure. 

^'That has more tune in it than your 
pieces usually have,” Anne commented, ap- 
provingly. ‘‘Or is it some real music that 
you have learned?” 

“Gosh! Anne,” said Philippa, beginning to 
stir the melting chocolate and sugar in the 
chafing dish, “did you mean to flatter Vir- 
ginia or insult her? I imderstand.” And the 
meaning glance she sent Virginia cemented 
the reconciliation. “Maybe sometime Vir- 
ginia will get up courage enough to stand up 
for what she believes,” thought Philippa. 
“And then she will be a dandy friend.” 

“Goodness! Philippa, I wouldn’t say 
‘ Gosh.’ ” Anne was complacently taking out 
the carving cloth she was embroidering for 
her mother for Christmas. 

“I’d like to know what’s the difference be- 
tween ‘ Gosh ’ and ‘ Goodness ’ ?” said Philippa, 
energetically stirring the bubbling syrup. 

172 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


There is a difference.” 

I don’t see — ” Philippa began. Then she 
thought to herself, ^^Oh, what’s the use! I 
might as well give up expecting that Anne 
ever will admit she’s wrong. I might just as 
well be pleasant and be done with it. Anne,” 
she said, aloud, we’re going to have walnuts 
in it this time.” 

^^Goodl” said Anne, with enthusiasm. 
'^It’s so much better with walnuts.” Some- 
how Anne’s approval always made things so 
comfortable. 

When the fudge was out on the window 
ledge, cooling, they settled down, side by side, 
on the davenport. Each, in her different 
way, recognized that the moment was sweet. 
Virginia snuggled her head down on Phi- 
lippa’s shoulder. And Anne, after a mo- 
ment’s hesitation, decisively grasped her 
hand. Anne’s was a soft little hand, even if 
it was firm. An undefined wave of pleasant- 
ness went over Philippa. She couldn’t pos- 
sibly have described the sensation; but to 
have Anne hold your hand meant that every- 
thing was very sure and comfortable — all the 
simple, common things — and that you were 
snug and warm and satisfied and all wistful 
longings were shut out. 

^73 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Gosh ! but it made me feel as if Christmas 
was coming when we started on ^ Holy Night ’ 
music lesson to-day. And Fm not a bit 
ready.” 

'^You’re not? Let’s go down to-morrow 
and get some things. The stores are so 
crowded later on.” 

”I can’t. I haven’t — ” Philippa checked 
herself and turned very red. Then she went 
on hurriedly, '*I certainly am glad I’m not 
a music-teacher in the 8A Clifton Park 
school.” 

‘"Why?” asked Virginia, with interest. 
All of Philippa’s opinions seemed of extraor- 
dinary interest to Virginia this evening. 

” The boys are such nuts. Why can’t they 
sing out? You’d think we didn’t have any- 
body but girls in the school. Every one of the 
girls singing hard and the boys not making 
any sound — ^just a kind of buzzing. And 
every time Miss Steele looked at them they 
opened their mouths as if they were bellow- 
ing!'' And then Philippa went off into on6 
of her fits of laughter and they all had to 
follow suit. 

”But their voices are so queer and unex- 
pected when they do sing,” said Virginia, 
plaintively. 


174 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

That sent Philippa off again. 

‘Tt’s either a growl or a squeak,” she 
gasped, breathlessly. ‘'I’m weak with sus- 
pense when it comes Jeff’s turn to sing alone. 
He ought to be able to sing ‘The Star- 
spangled Banner,’ anyway.” 

“Why? That’s one of the hardest things 
to sing,” said Virginia, earnestly. 

“Why, some one said nobody could sing 
it but a boy whose voice was changing.” 

“That’s an old joke,” said Anne, calmly. 

“I don’t care. It’s funny,” said Philippa, 
quite as calmly. “Lawrence Tracy’s got the 
only bass voice in the school, and when he 
really sings you feel as if you had fallen 
down the steps into the cellar. He acts as 
if he was surprised at it every time.” 

Virginia stopped laughing before the others. 

“Perhaps we ought not to laugh at them.” 

“I felt just awfully sorry for that Stewart 
kid who has the high voice. When Miss 
Steele told him to sing the solo part in that 
jolly song from the Italian opera, he nearly 
fainted. He said, ‘I canH^ Miss Steele,’ and 
she just smiled and said, ‘Oh yes, you can,’ 
and played the music for his part and 
waited. His hand went out to grab some- 
thing just as if he was drowning. He got 
175 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


hold of his desk and gripped it until his 
knuckles were white. And then he got out, 
'I’d like to spend my life in singing a joyous 
song — a joyous song,’ looking as if he was 
going to cry every minute. A funny 'joyous 
song’ it was. Honest, I almost burst trying 
to keep from laughing right out.” 

"You almost burst singing, I’d say,” said 
Anne. "When we have a singing lesson 
Philippa stands up and swells her chest and 
goes through all the motions of a grand- 
opera star, just as if she was doing the whole 
thing herself, raising her eyebrows and mak- 
ing gestures and all. Honestly, Philippa, you 
don’t know how funny you are to watch. 
When anyone else is singing you make the 
words with your mouth.” 

"I don’t care. I do like to sing, whether 
I’ve got any voice or not. And if you get 
any fun out of watching me you’re quite 
welcome,” was Philippa’s calm response. 

"Mother says I can have a party during 
the Christmas holidays,” said Virginia, hast- 
ily, feeling in her gentle soul a great hor- 
ror of anything that might precipitate an- 
other clash. 

"That’s fine. I think the fudge must be 
cool by this time.” Philippa made a dive for 
176 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

the window. ''Yes, it’s just right,” she said 
a moment longer. 

"Good!” 

There was the most complete harmony 
in the room for a few minutes. 

"M-m-m-m, this is good fudge,” said 
Philippa, modestly. "Who ’re you going to 
ask to the party?” 

"Why, just the usual ones,” said Virginia, 
vaguely. "The class, and the Henderson 
girls and my cousins and all.” 

Philippa ate a few minutes in appreciative 
and meditative silence. 

"I like parties,” she said at last, "all but 
the boys.” 

"Now that’s silly. You can’t have a 
party without boys.” 

The finality in Anne’s tone roused Phi- 
lippa, as it usually did, to original ideas by 
way of contradiction. 

"I don’t know why. We like to dress up 
and dance and all that, and they seem to hate 
it — ^judging by the way they act, anyway.” 

"Why do they come, then? ’’was Anne’s 
brief question. 

"Refreshments. The first happy minute 
for them is when the ice cream and cake 
come in. I never worked so hard in my life 
177 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

as I did at my last party before we had the 
meeting. There were all the girls on one 
side, all dressed up ’n’ everything, talking 
together while the dance music was going on, 
acting as if the very last thing they wanted 
to do was to dance and really not thinking 
about another thing. And the boys were 
just all lumped together on the other side of 
the room, holding one another up as if they 
were afraid they’d be murdered if they 
separated. I declare they were just like a 
mass of the stickiest dates you ever saw. 
You just couldn’t separate them. And I’d 
go up to one of them and say, ^ Don’t you 
want to dance?’ And he’d mumble some- 
thing that didn’t mean anything, and then 
I’d pretend I thought he didn’t know some 
girl that wasn’t in his room at school, and 
take him over and introduce him and go 
away quick so he couldn’t have any excuse 
to leave. And I’d think it was all right and 
he was. going to invite her to dance. And the 
very next time I looked there he would be 
back with the other boys, holding his head 
stiff and straight because he had on a stiff 
collar and looking as if his best suit was like 
one of those suits of armor I saw down at the 
museum the other day. And that very same 
178 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

boy was so foolish as soon as we had refresh- 
ments, that I had to tap him so hard to make 
him stop rough-housing that I almost knocked 
him down.” 

''You didn’t hit him?” Virginia was 
clearly scandalized. 

"You bet I did. I’ve got as much muscle 
as he has. And I don’t see why we ask the 
boys, anyway.” 

"You’re a nice one to say that when you 
wanted to have — ” Anne had said, when 
she stopped, biting her lip. "But do you 
think you’d like a party without boys?” 

Philippa considered. Then she laughed. 

"No, I wouldn’t,” she said, candidly. 
"But I’m sure I don’t see why.” 

"I’ll never marry anyone like anyone I 
ever saw,” said Virginia, her eyes dreamy. 
"He’s going to be tall and have gray eyes 
with lots of thick cturling lashes, and be a 
naval officer and be sent to Hawaii.” 

"One of my cousins is at Annapolis,” said 
Anne. "And—” 

"Oh, but I mean an officer.” 

"Well, he has to go to Annapolis before 
he’s made an officer, doesn’t he?” 

Virginia was silenced for a moment. Then 
she began again. 


179 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘*I have a cousin who has just got engaged. 
And she’s only five years and three months 
older than I am. And the man she’s engaged 
to is almost thirty years old and has a hold 
spot on the top of his head. How can she do 
it? Of course she can’t be in love with him.” 

Anne’s eyes suddenly widened with horror. 

‘‘Just think! Probably somebody will 
marry Dick Borden! And his ears are never 
really clean! I know because I’ve sat behind 
him all this semester.” 

Philippa began to shake with laughter. 

“Well, what is the matter now?” asked 
Virginia, plaintively. 

“Why, we don’t see how any girl can ever 
like the boys of our own age, and we don’t 
see how anybody can fall in love with a man 
who’s as old as the one Virginia’s cousin is 
engaged to.” 

“Well, what’s funny about that?” 

“And I heard a lady who was going 
through the school the other day say, ‘The 
flower of the youth of the city is in the Clif- 
ton Park school.’” 

“Well?” 

“Well, there aren’t so many years between 
thirteen and thirty — I begin to feel like the 
old farmers up at the Cove who say there 
i8o 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


isn’t any use to make a garden there, because 
the season’s so short.” 

don’t know what you’re talking about, 
Philippa,” said Anne, severely. 

just wondered when boys got to be 
worth being mushy about and when they 
stopped. But never mind. Have some 
fudge.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


P hilippa was hurrying home from school. 

‘'What would mother think of me for 
having such a crazy thought?'’ she asked 
herself. “I don't believe she could even 
understand. And — she might laugh at me.'' 
Her face was red at the thought. She hated 
to be laughed at. “But it's got to be done, 
anyway. I've got to tell her. I've been 
acting like a perfect fool. But suppose I see 
the look come into her face that means it's 
truer' 

“Oh, muzz!" she called out in her most 
loving voice as soon as she opened the door. 

“Hush, Philippa." Doreen had appeared 
swiftly from the living room. She drew the 
child in and shut the door with no noise. 
“Mother and father are talking upstairs. 
He came home early. You mustn't disturb 
them now." 

Philippa glared at Doreen. 

“Gosh! I don't see why you should have 
so much to do with it," she said, rudely. 
182 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘‘Did they tell you to keep me away from 
them?” There was a jealous suspicion in 
her angry eyes. 

“No, dear.” Doreen spoke with a gentle 
dignity that usually had its effect upon the 
younger sister, who adored her. But to-day 
the oil was poured on flames, not water. 
“But I think they have something they 
want to talk over. And I wouldn’t say 
‘Gosh’ if I were you. It — ” 

“I will if I want to. I don’t see why you 
should know so much better than I what I 
ought to do. You’re only six years older, 
anyway. I’ve got as much right in this 
house as you!” Philippa raged, starting 
upstairs. 

Doreen put out a hand and held her. 

“I think you’ll be sorry if you interrupt 
them. Father is troubled. He looks badly. 
I’m sure they don’t want us bothering 
them.” 

“I suppose they told you'' Ugly and 
suspicious as Philippa’s eyes were, she halted. 

“ No. Neither of them said a word to me. 
But I could see something was wrong. I 
know they want to be alone together. And 
I’m going to see that they have what they 
want.” Doreen seldom asserted herself, 

13 ^183 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


but when she did there was usually reason 
for it. Philippa had to admit that. It’s a 
nuisance, sometimes, to be intelligent. She 
was as ungracious as she could be about 
yielding, but she yielded. 

‘^Oh, well, you needn’t be afraid I’m going 
to inflict my company on them,” she said, 
scornfully. “Will it hurt anybody if I go to 
my own room?” 

“Of course not. Don’t be silly.” Doreen 
spoke a little impatiently. Her calm manner 
often covered intense feeling. She had been 
sitting alone in acute suspense, feeling sure 
that a crisis in the family affairs had been 
reached, that the Post Office bill was going 
wrong. For the last half hour she had been 
gripping her hands together, trying to decide 
how she could show her sympathy and her 
eagerness to help in the best possible way. 

“Poor mother! Poor, poor daddy!” she 
said over and over to herself. But, beyond 
the fact that there was none of the lovely 
color in her cheeks that was usually there, 
nobody could have guessed the agony of 
sympathy that she felt. 

For years afterward that evening stood 
out in Philippa’s memory as the very worst 
their happy little house had ever known. It 
184 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


seemed as if dinner time would never come. 
And when it did come and they were all 
seated aroimd the table, pretending to eat 
dinner, she wondered if it could really be the 
same room and they the same family. 

‘‘If they would only tell us and let us tell 
them that nothing really matters if we have 
one another,” she told herself. But they 
didn’t. So with fine scrupulousness she 
acted loyally up to what was required of her. 

In fact, they were all acting, poor things! 
Mr. Gale, with a terrible bleak look on a 
colorless face, yet talked almost naturally, 
about the kinds of things that he usually 
talked about. Mrs. Gale, her anxious eyes 
turning to him every other minute, seconded 
his efforts to be conversational. She evaded 
looking much at either of the children be- 
cause she found, to her shame, that if her 
eyes rested more than an instant on either 
dear face, the realization of the disappoint- 
ment of innocent hopes in store for them 
brought the tears to her eyes. Doreen, as 
we have seen, was acting. Turning her 
flowerlike face toward her father or her 
mother, she smiled at what was intended to 
be humorous or widened her eyes at what 
she knew was intended to be noteworthy. 
185 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Philippa was acting, following a bit defiantly 
the lead of her elders, saying and doing just 
the proper thing at the proper moment. 
She was impersonating, quite imsuspected 
by the others, the role of the one whose trust 
in life has been destroyed, but who still 
chooses the path of rectitude. To her, the 
fact that everyone seemed unhappy was a 
personal affront. She hated unhappiness. 

When the interminable meal was ended, 
the two girls escaped gladly to their own 
rooms. Doreen, who had made an engage- 
ment for the theater that evening, soon left 
with one of the youths who were always 
hovering around her. Philippa, with a stem, 
set face, methodically studied her lessons, 
said good night dutifully — ^if hurriedly — ^to 
her father and mother, and finally, having 
read up to almost the moment of her orthodox 
bedtime, went to bed. She gave up the idea 
of telling her mother what was troubling her. 

She had dreaded going to bed. She felt 
sure she was going to lie awake, and to- 
night the mere thought of lying awake terri- 
fied her. It was bad enough when she was 
too happy to go to sleep. But to-night, alone 
in a house that had turned a strange and 
unfriendly face to her, with Mollie in her 

i86 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


room upstairs, with mother and father shut 
up over something terrible in the den; with 
Doreen out and forgetting all about her in 
the good time she was having; with Bayard 
miles and miles away, there was no protec- 
tion from the unhappy thoughts that were in 
the comers of the room waiting to come out 
at her. 

It seemed an age before she heard the 
clock strike. And then it was only ten! 
Closing her eyes in a feverish determination 
to go to sleep and cheat those things, forget 
the unknown new unhappiness and the big 
unhappiness that had been haunting her for 
days, she held herself rigidly quiet. 

That was beginning to work. She was, 
after all, a tired little girl, and mere physical 
weariness was soon floating her own on a 
peaceful tide where all of the ugly fears and 
suspicions that had tormented her were 
first benumbed, then forgotten, when all 
at once something creaked — imnaturally. 
She was wide awake and trembling in an in- 
stant. She listened. There was no second 
soimd. After some cowering moments in 
bed, her terror growing worse every instant, 
she made a superhuman effort, crept out of 
bed, and switched on the light. There was 
187 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


nothing there. She opened the door and 
peeped out into the hall. It was empty. 

The light gave her courage enough to be 
angry at herself. She had always had a 
hearty contempt for children who were 
afraid of the dark. Still — ^it required deter- 
mination to turn the light out again and lie 
still with the imcertain darkness all around 
her. She held herself very still. Surely she 
would go to sleep, as she had nearly done 
before, if she kept perfectly motionless and 
didn’t let herself wonder what made that 
cloudlike shiny something near the window, 
or get to thinking about that. 

*‘Oh, it can’t be true! It just caw’//” 
She told the rising bitter thought that would 
creep up, even as that cloudlike mist seemed 
to be advancing, even though she was de- 
termined it shouldn’t. ” Lie still 1 I must lie 
still ! I must not open my eyes to look. That 
would mean that I really believe there is 
something. That rustling isn’t anything but 
the window shade moving with the breeze. 
And — and I’ve just imagined about the — 
Lie still!” 

But the more she ordered herself to be 
still, the more her legs and arms were 
Strangely, wearily imeasy. They twitched 

i88 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

with the constraint her will put upon them. 
‘'No, I won’t light the light and read. I’m 
going to sleep. A minute ago I almost 
did.” 

The clock struck eleven. 

“I’ll hear Doreen coming home soon — if 
I’m awake then. I can call her.” There was 
comfort in the thought. Such comfort that 
uneasiness and fear were ebbing away. 
She was almost startled when she did hear 
footsteps, real footsteps this time, on the 
stairs and knew that Doreen was really home. 
Her ears strained to hear her footsteps going 
down the hall. But no; instead, her door 
opened and Doreen peeped in. 

“Hello!” Philippa said, casually. Doreen 
mustn’t know how lucky it was she had 
looked in. It was too silly. 

“Awake, little sister? ” Doreen said, gently. 
Philippa adored her for the warm tenderness 
in her voice. She crossed over to the bed. 
Philippa stretched her arms and yawned 
realistically. But when Doreen kissed her 
her own lips quivered with exquisite relief and 
she put her arms up and drew Doreen’s head 
down toward hers in a stifling hug. 

“There! Go to sleep again. Why aren’t 
you asleep? It’s so stupid to lie awake, isn’t 
189 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

it? I do it once or twice a year and then I’m 
so angry at myself.” 

^'Was the play good?” Philippa asked, 
eagerly. That might serve to keep Doreen 
with her. She couldn’t bear to let her go 
yet. 

''Pretty good. Rather foolish in spots. 
But I mustn’t keep you awake. Good night.” 

She was gone. But there was a warm, com- 
fortable place in the child’s heart where some- 
thing hard and bitter had been. 

"If it is so — ^but it isn’t — Doreen doesn’t 
know. Or, if she does, it hasn’t made any 
difference.” Hugging the thought to her she 
drifted off to sleep. 

But it couldn’t have been a soimd sleep. 
All at once — she didn’t know when — Philippa 
was wide awake. She listened to the sounds. 
They came from the room next hers, her 
mother’s room. 

"Oh, what is it? What is it?” The 
frightened child pulled the covers up tight 
around her and listened — paralyzed. It 
was — She had never heard anything like 
it before. It was — It was like some one 
crying. But yet not like — It wasn’t 
mother. It came from her room. Dreadful 
soimds — ^tearing — ^gasping soimds. It was 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


as if each one would burst — anyone’s throat. 
It couldn’t be — It couldn’t be — He 
wouldn’t — 

The sounds were lower. There was a mur- 
mur of a voice — That, anyway, was 
mother’s voice. And — oh, it soimded so 
sweet, so comforting. It meant that nothing 
could be hopeless. There was some help. 
Anyone— father would be comforted just to 
hear that voice and to know that mother 
was there — just loving — and comforting — 

No! The soimds came again. There 
were words — gasping words in the midst — 
She covered her ears with the bedclothes. 
She couldn’t hear. It wasn’t right. Yet 
involuntarily she strained her ears. 

‘‘They don’t know — What can chil- 
dren — Everything gone down I’ve staked. 
Oughtn’t to have forgotten what it would 
mean — you all — But the children. Oh, 
yes, it’s ruin I . . . No, there’s no hope from 
Redf — No. You can’t make him see any- 
thing. His constituents — election near — 
I’m done for^ I tell you. Bayard might not 
be so much hurt, perhaps. But Doreen — 
might as well toss a flower on the ash-heap. 
Yes. Good God! I know I’m extravagant. 
Can’t help myself — That’s what scares — 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


A cog has slipped somewhere — Lost my 
grip — If you can say anything — Help me 
to get myself in hand — ” 

Again the murmur. When it came the 
child relaxed her fierce tension. The voice 
was so sweet. It must comfort him — so 
steady — so believing. She listened, cower- 
ing. No, they didn’t come again — the — ^the 
soimds. Just another murmur — a deeper 
one — ^broken up at first. It flowed on stead- 
ily — deeper now — ^louder. Now it sounded 
like real talking — ^like — ^like father— daddy 
— eager— 

Philippa hugged herself, laughing and cry- 
ing together. The tears, without her knowing 
it, ran down her face and soaked the sheets. 

It’s over. She’s made him feel all better. 
Oh, what can be the matter? It couldn’t be 
just the bill. That couldn’t make him feel 
like that. Oh, I didn’t know fathers ’n’ 
mothers ever felt like thaL I thought it 
must be wonderful not to have to ask per- 
mission — do anything you want to. Oh, I’m 
so glad it’s over. I’m so glad! I don’t care 
about anything, now it’s over. Something 
just made him sick. But he’s all better now. 
Poor daddy! Oh, I must do something! I 
will do something!” 


192 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Shaking, trembling, the tears streaming 
down her face, something was happening to 
the child. Something had penetrated to her 
heart that had never been there before. 
There was a pain in her throat that nothing 
but a broken winged bird or a dog lifting up 
a broken leg to the help of the godlike human 
above him had ever brought there before. 
She stretched out her arms toward the room 
from which the sounds had come in a dumb 
desire to add something to the healing that 
was going on. 

It might have been that that was the 
destined night when Philippa’s soul should 
be bom. It might have been the moment at 
which the ''higher sensory nerves” of which 
scientists’ talk were evolved. It might have 
been merely that it was the stage at which 
the scales were stricken from her eyes, those 
stupid, untender scales through which we 
can never truly see. 

The sounds from the next room were lower 
and lower. They stopped. Peace descended 
upon the house. Philippa, too, slept long 
and healingly. 


CHAPTER XX 


S HE woke in the gray of the early morning 
to a startling recollection of all that had 
happened the night before. And with that 
realization was the conviction that she must, 
right away without delay, do her part. 

She heard her father in the midst of a 
great splashing in his bathroom. So, without 
pausing, she slipped her feet into bedroom 
slippers and wrapped herself in her woolly 
bathrobe and, after a gentle tap and a sur- 
prised ^‘Come in'* from her mother, she 
slipped into mother’s room. 

^'Oh, muzz, may I come into your bed?” 
she asked, a wholly unexpected bit of a sob 
in her throat as the recollection of last night’s 
sadness overwhelmed her, not yet quite out 
of the misty half world of dreams. In 
answer her mother put out her arms and 
drew her in imder the warm covers. 

As those arms, that had never yet failed 
her, closed warmly about her the child broke 
into a storm of tears. 


194 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


^*Oh, mother, I didn’t know mothers ’n* 
fathers felt like that. I heard last night — 
I couldn’t help it — I just felt awful — ” 

''You heard? Oh, I — Wait, dear! Don’t 
cry like that. You mustn’t. Don’t worry 
about father. He had had a blow, but you 
can’t down him. He’s got his second wind — 
his thousandth. He was ill last night, 
broken down physically. Nerves will give 
way sometimes even if your purpose doesn’t. 
He’s thought of a dozen new ways of 'getting 
at them’ this morning. He’s just waiting 
imtil nine o’clock to get to work.” 

"But it was awful last night. And I 
couldn’t do anything. And — ^and I wanted 
to — And I had been so mean. But — ^but — 
oh, muzz, you are my own mother ’n’ father, 
aren’t you?” 

"Philippa! Dear child, you mustn’t cry 
like that! You’ll make yourself ill. What 
do you mean? I knew there was something 
on your mind. What do you mean by 'own 
mother and father’? What else should we 
be? What crazy idea — Now, really. Sweet- 
heart, you must stop. You’ll be really ill. 
It’s bad for you to give way. There — there, 
dear. You are safe in mother’s arms and 
nothing else matters to either of us.” 

195 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Philippa’s sobs were subsiding. She was 
no longer shaking so violently. Only long, 
sobbing breaths, the ebbing of the sea of 
tears. She hid her face on her mother’s 
breast and then the words came, hesitating 
at first and then tumbling over one another. 

^^I heard you and father talking, that 
night after the party, when I was so happy, 
you know, and asked you to leave the door 
open so I could hear your voices. I didn’t 
mean to hear anything you said. But I did. 
I heard you say, 'Of course, Doreen is my 
own child,’ and — ^and then, 'but Philippa — ’ 
And then the door swung shut and I didn’t 
hear any more. And — ^and I heard you come 
into my room, but I pretended to be asleep 
and — ” She stopped and the sobs rose again 
in her throat. 

"But what — ? I don’t understand — Y ou 
couldn’t have thought — ?” 

"I didn’t really believe. And yet — But 
what did you mean, mother? And there 
have been things like that. I’ve read about 
them, and seen movies where children have 
been brought up in families as if they had 
been own children when they weren’t and 
didn’t know until they were grown and had 
fortimes coming to them. And I got to 
196 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

thinking about that. And of course^ I didn’t 
really believe it, only I couldn’t drive the 
thought away. And it seemed to me that 
you treated me differently from Doreen. 
And there was the dark man in the fortune 
who was going to give me a lot of money. I 
remembered him and it was so awful to think 
that maybe it was going to turn out that he 
was my father instead of daddy. I didn’t 
really believe any of that, but it all went 
together, and as soon as I got rid of one 
thing another thing would come back — ^at 
night you know. And I felt all hard and 
ugly inside me. And — I just couldn’t stand 
it. And — ^please wait just a minute before 
you tell me anything. I want to say this 
first. Last night I knew that I could just do 
anything for you and father. And it didn’t 
matter whether I was really your own bom 
little girl, becaffse you had really been my 
mother ’n’ father, anyway — the best anybody 
ever had. So it just doesn’t make any 
difference. Perhaps I love you more, even. 
I just want to make you and father feel hap- 
pier. I will be more careful about my clothes 
and not wear them out so fast, and dam my 
stockings when the tiniest hole begins to 
come, and you don’t need to give me my 
197 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

allowance. If I can only make you feel 
better.” 

She burrowed her head desperately into 
her mother’s shoulder. For a second the 
mother couldn’t speak. It was too incredible 
that this storm could have been brewing. 
How could a little child, yesterday a baby, 
suffer like that? Just from a thought? 

^‘Sweetheart! Of course, you’re my own, 
my very own, baby. I can’t imagine what 
words I could have used.” 

“You said, ‘Of course Doreen is my very 
own child. But Philippa — 

“What I must have meant that she was 
more like me, more as I remembered having 
been as a yotmg girl. And about you — ^per- 
haps we were talking of your being more 
uneven, imaginative, impetuous than the 
other two. Every child is sometimes a sur- 
prise to a mother. Something from the big 
strange Outside comes in and you look at 
your child, just yesterday a baby in your 
arms. And there is a new personality de- 
manding attention, thought, consideration, 
admiration, like the interesting man or woman 
you have just met and been attracted to — 
are trying to understand — ^get imder the 
skin of. Your father and I are always being 
198 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


stirprised. Bayard sometimes seems so new, 
so wonderful to us, that we wonder how he 
happened. And Doreen — Why, girlie, you 
could have overheard me saying just that 
same thing about each of the others a him- 
dred times. That’s what makes the wonder 
of being mother. God puts a helpless soft 
little btmdle of flesh and blood into your 
arms. And to-morrow it is looking at you 
with eyes that give instead of ask. It’s the 
miracle, the sweetest thing in earth — or 
heaven — I believe it must be.” She finished 
under her breath and strained Philippa to 
her in a long, wonderful embrace. 

Philippa lay motionless, awed, and silent. 
Then she said, faintly: 

'^I don’t see how you can stand me, when 
— ^when I make so much trouble now when 
you and father are so worried.” 

‘'Now you’re being morbid. It’s foolish 
to waste strength being remorseful over 
things you couldn’t help. There’s no crime 
in having an imagination. It’s the most 
precious thing in the world, the thing that, 
has made every advance the world has known 
possible, from the first hearth fire to the air- 
plane. But it’s got to be harnessed and 
made to work, not allowed to kick over the 
14 199 


PHILIPPA^S FORTUNE 


traces like a runaway horse. It’s folly to let 
wild thoughts, painful thoughts, have their 
way with you without making an effort to 
find out the truth immediately. There is 
truth in what some scientists say that 
thoughts so hidden are like a bruise that 
cannot be reached; they make disease where, 
if they could be open to the healing of the 
truth, there would be none. I shall blame 
you if you nurse an ugly thought like this 
in secret another time. If you had only 
come to me the first instant you had such a 
monstrous idea! You would have known 
how absurd it was and been saved so much. 
And there’s the harm of the crazy stories 
people write for children like you to read — 
as if a normal human wasn’t the most won- 
derful romance of all!” 

* ‘ I was ashamed. I sort of knew it couldn’t 
be true, and yet — ” 

** And yet it came back and back. I know. 
But I’m sure that, after this, no thought can 
come into your mind to trouble you that you 
can’t tell us. That’s what yoiu* father and 
I are here for. There’s no shame in having a 
foolish thought — once. Everyone has, some- 
times. But there is shame and folly in har- 
boring them.” 


200 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

never, never have another that I 
don’t tell you.” Philippa hugged her mother 
convulsively. ^^But I couldn’t imagine, you 
see, that you could possibly be as good as 
you have been to me and say just the right 
thing. It’s because you are so high up above 
me. 

Never that, dear.” Mrs. Gale spoke 
almost with severity. ‘‘Just a little farther 
along the road. And more in need of what 
you children give than you can possibly be 
in need of us. Now, particularly, if father 
should really lose out with the Post Office 
cases, we will need all the help you children 
can give us — ^just the precious help you 
bring. But now, don’t say anything to 
father. It would be a shocking thing if he 
knew you heard last night. Run away now, 
I mean. But keep close, close, close. That’s 
all that matters. And it makes everythmg 
worth while.” 

From the door came back a little choked 
voice: 

“I’ll remember. And — smother — ^if you 
weren’t my born mother ’n’ father I’d choose 
you.” 


CHAPTER XXI 


A lthough at breakfast that morning 
. Philippa could not quite meet her moth- 
er’s eyes, being a bit embarrassed at the 
recollection of the highly emotional time 
they had had together, she had a knowledge 
that there was a new sympathy between 
them. She felt awkward and constrained, 
but very happy. And she had a" special kind 
of love for everybody. Yet there seemed no 
way she could show it. 

She was abnormally sensitive for every- 
body; the simplest thing that was said she 
winced at; it might hurt her father or 
mother. It was as if her nerves had put out 
tentacles and every passing breath hurt 
them. When her father, a little pale, but 
rather more than usually cheerful, said: 

We’ll have to bring home part of your 
Christmas money, Pip; perhaps you can get 
some shopping done to-day if you will come 
down to the office first,” she drew back, 
almost horrified. How could he think she 


202 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

would let him give her money, knowing what 
she did. Then she reminded herself that he 
didn’t know she knew. This brought the 
realization that probably many times when 
she hadn’t known, father had still been just 
as cheerful. How imselfish fathers and 
mothers had to be and what a load they bore 
cheerfully. At that moment it seemed to 
her that they must go around with bleeding 
hearts nine-tenths of the time, bearing im- 
measurable griefs with a smiling face. It 
would not have been Philippa if she had not 
done full emotional justice to a situation! 
But she did manage, instead of allowing him 
to guess her own private melodrama, to say 
very naturally: 

think, after all, father, I’m not quite 
ready yet. I want to think about it a little 
longer.” And just as she was congratulating 
herself that nobody understood what was 
going on in her mind, she met her mother’s 
eyes. And her mother smiled a sweet, un- 
derstanding smile at her. So Philippa began 
the day, feeling that it was marked off from 
all other days. She went off to school very 
quietly, reflecting pensively that she had been 
a mere careless child when she had trodden 
that way before! 


203 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Although Mrs. Gale had none of the satis- 
faction with which Philippa was dramatizing 
the situation, some of the glow that followed 
on the prophecy of a woman ally and friend 
in the freakish little Philippa remained with 
her. Even Doreen’s parting caress or the 
fact that the mail brought one of Bayard’s 
letters did not, at that time, mean so much. 
It helped her to speed her husband with a 
steady confidence of victory — somewhere 
and sometime. It lasted over the routine 
morning duties. As she left Philippa’s room, 
the last in the morning straightening up, she 
gave the bureau cover an extra affectionate 
little pat as she smoothed out a wrinkle. 


CHAPTER XXII 


certainly must be feeling well, 

I Philippa,” Doreen remarked at Itmch 
Saturday. ‘'Honestly, mother, the child 
looks to me as if she had gained ten pounds 
in the last week. Did you ever see such 
cheeks? It's nice being at peace with all the 
world again, isn't it, Pip?'' 

“Um — ^humph!'' said Philippa, very un- 
graciously. She knew she was supposed to 
be gratified at Doreen's remark. But she 
wasn't. It aroused a certain horrible doubt 
in her mind. Perhaps it was the first time 
that Philippa had ever thought much about 
her appearance except to prefer her new 
dresses. 

“Am I getting too fat?” She ran up to 
her room to look in the mirror before she 
went for Anne and Virginia, with whom she 
was going downtown for a picture, and a 
chocolate marshmallow simdas after it. She 
might, of course, have inspected herself in 
the tall mirror in the hall, but her own look- 
205 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


ing-glass, somehow, seemed more reliable. 
The image of herself at various stages seemed 
to linger there for purposes cr comparison. 

I hate fat people. Yes, I believe I am fatter 
than I was. And my clothes feel tighter 
than they did. They certainly do.” 

She compressed her lips. The day sud- 
denly became overcast. Her winter hat, 
which she had always put on with serene con- 
fidence because mother had got it for her and 
it was new this winter, all at once she looked 
at doubtfully. Did it make her face look 
round and fat? Her coat seemed to pull 
across the shoulders. 

”I must really have gained,” she thought. 
'*Oh dear! why can’t I be nice and slender 
like Doreen!” 

» Acutely dissatisfied with herself, she went 
to the rendezvous. A lady who passed her 
turned to look back. Philippa was certain 
the lady was remarking on her avoirdupois. 
She flushed and felt miserably self-conscious. 
But there seemed to be nothing that she could 
do about it. If she was fat she just was. 

When Philippa met Anne and Virginia 
both of them noticed that something was the 
matter with her, but neither of them wanted 
to ask her what it was. Philippa was apt 

206 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


to be snappish when she was asked incon- 
venient questions. Even Anne, eternally 
sure of her own righteousness as she seemed 
to be, had no desire to awaken controversy. 
She was, imdemeath, nervously anxious to 
be friends. 

So they didn’t appear to notice that Phi- 
lippa wasn’t in the happiest humor, but 
made conversation with each other to cover 
up their friend’s silences. And there were 
many silences. Try as she would, Philippa 
couldn’t forget her fatness. It clung to her, 
made her awkward about getting on and off 
the car, afraid of showing pleasure over 
anything because it might make her con- 
spicuous. When people glanced at her in 
the car she thought they were commenting 
on her size. The color left her face and she 
did, in truth, look of a somewhat pasty 
chubbiness. 

If people were fat, was there any way they 
could help it. Once when Doreen had been 
ill she got very thin and they made her drink 
lots of milk so she would gain flesh. If there 
was a way to gain it there must be a way to 
get rid of it. That gave her a ray of hope 
and she brightened up. 

“I’ll find out,” she told herself with de- 
207 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

cision. Then she was doubly uncomfortable. 
It was all right to know you could get thin, 
but that only made her feel more enormous 
in the present. And how did you do it, 
anyway? 

Fortune favored her. On the seat in front 
of her were two middle-aged ladies talking 
with great 'enthusiasm. All at once she 
caught some words, overweight,” re- 
ducing,” and then a whole sentence: ^‘My 
dear, the fat just melted away the very 
first week. I lost ten pounds.” 

Philippa looked at the billowing dame 
with a fellow-feeling that she probably would 
not have felt the day before. 

^^Gosh! how could she ever have weighed 
ten poimds more than she does now?” she 
asked herself with an awakening of scientific 
curiosity. 

^'How did you ever do it?” asked her 
friend, with respectful interest. 

Philippa strained her ears to hear the 
answer. 

^^Oh, it’s very simple, but I do give myself 
the credit for having kept it up. Now Mary 
Kilgore didn’t hold out after the first week.” 

Philippa felt a passing disapproval of the 
weak-willed Mary Kilgore. 

208 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘‘I just cut out all sweets, all starchy 
food, but two thin slices of toast in the 
morning; also all fats.” 

“How about potatoes?” asked her friend. 

“Oh, no potatoes, of coursed There was 
something like horror in her tone. 

“But that didn’t leave you much to eat, 
it seems to me.” 

“Yes, it did, all that I really required. 
I could have green vegetables, several salads 
(without dressing, of course), all meats but 
pork in any form. But I really think it is the 
exercise that is more important, perhaps. I 
had setting up exercises in my room morning 
and night and walked not less than five 
miles a day. And then I rolled.” 

“ But I thought they didn’t roll any more.” 

“Some people are foolish enough to say 
that that is an exploded idea — ^rolling, I 
mean.” The zeal of the convert was in her 
voice. “But I have found rolling most help- 
ful. Only you must roll enough. Fifty times 
is my regular program, fifty times morning 
and night. And you see the result. I 
haven’t any hips or stomach to speak of.” 

She smoothed down complacently the 
steep descent by which she was, as it were, 
fenced in all arotmd. There was a good deal 

209 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


of territory within the palisades, it is true. 
But Philippa, on the trail of a useful idea, 
accepted without criticism her assertion that 
she '‘had no hips to speak of.” She covertly 
stroked the analagous portions of her own 
anatomy. There was no such steep descent 
there. 

"Fat!” Philippa thought to herself with 
infinite contempt for herself. "Just fat.” 

All through the pictme, although it was a 
really good one that the censorship of the 
elders had agreed the children would be 
benefited by seeing, Philippa was strangely 
silent. But Anne, whose party it was, was 
convinced that her friend was lost in enjoy- 
ment of the scenes that passed before them, 
and quite plumed herself, Anne fashion, on 
having been clever enough to choose such a 
superior film. But when, after the show was 
over, they stopped at the soda fountain that 
was absolutely the height of their desires, 
to have a treat, and then Philippa, with a 
thoughtful face, refused refreshment, both 
Anne and Virginia were seriously alarmed. 

They stared at her with mouths unbe- 
comingly open. 

"What is the matter, Philippa?” Anne de- 
manded, indignantly. ' ' Are you angry again?” 


210 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘‘I wasn’t — ” Philippa began, and then 
checked herself. Hadn’t she made up her 
mind that it wasn’t worth while to expect 
Anne to see some things? ^'No, I’m not 
angry. I just don’t think so much sweet 
stuff is good for me.” 

They opened both their eyes and then- 
mouths this time. 

''Why, have you been sick?” It was Vir- 
ginia, the sympathetic, who spoke first this 
time. 

"No. But I — don’t want it.” Philippa 
was beginning to feel out of patience with all 
this curiosity. "I’ll take a lemonade,” she 
said, at last, to stop finther inquiry. 

So the lemonade was ordered and they 
found a cozy table where they could sit 
down together and enjoy what had always 
been a truly happy moment. Having sweets 
downtown in this grown-up fashion, with all 
the afternoon crowd of pleasure seekers drift- 
ing in and out, was enough of a novelty to 
them to add to the sincere enjoyment of 
luscious tastes. But to-day something pre- 
vented the fullest pleasure. Anne and Vir- 
ginia kept looking at Philippa inquiringly. 
They couldn’t quite understand how anyone 
in her sober senses would actually prefer 


2II 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


lemonade when she could have ice cream 
with a rich chocolate sauce over it, with 
nuts and marshmallow and whipped cream 
on top of that. And Philippa, though it was 
by her own act that she was martyred, could 
not help feeling a little injured when her 
friends partook of the sweet and creamy 
deliciousness which her own resolution would 
not allow her to enjoy. 

That day began a new era for Philippa, an 
era which her family, not being in her con- 
fidence, did not wholly enjoy. It took them 
a long time to realize that she was not 
sickening for some serious illness. When 
had Philippa ever been known to refuse her 
favorite summer dessert compounded of maca- 
roons, lady-fingers, Maraschino cherries, and 
whipped cream before? Then there was her 
sudden interest in setting-up exercises, her 
long walks every day — alone, since none of 
her friends could be prevailed upon to ac- 
company her. She withdrew to her room 
early; she arose early without being called; 
curious sounds, bumps, and thumps were 
heard whenever she was known to be alone 
there, behind closed doors. All this, they 
felt, could probably have been very easily 
explained. But Philippa refused to explain 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

it. She kept her own council as she went 
about with a purposeful, withdrawn look 
upon her face. 

''They’re probably having a 'health cru- 
sade’ in the schools,” Doreen suggested. 
"They used to have them when I was there.” 
But discreet questions failed to confirm that 
idea. There was no health crusade on in the 
schools, and Philippa had no chart upon 
which to mark down whether she had taken 
a bath that day or whether she had bhished 
her teeth after each meal. 

" If ever there was a child that didn’t need 
a health crusade it is Philippa,” sighed Mrs. 
Gale. "If she gets much healthier I don’t 
know what I’ll do with her. She’s so bursting 
with vitality now that she makes me feel 
limp when she comes into the room.” 

Philippa, as a matter of fact, was getting 
a good deal of enjoyment out of her determi- 
nation to reduce her flesh. She was obsessed 
with the idea; she was collecting much in- 
formation about the exact relation between 
what you eat and what you are. Moreover, 
she was discovering that there is a certain 
pleasiu*e in proving that you can boss your 
own body; it gave her a sense of proud inde- 
pendence to sit in the midst of a roomful of 
213 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


family and refuse to eat the things which 
they allowed themselves to enjoy. It created 
a highly agreeable sensation of proud su- 
periority and a corresponding pitying con- 
descension toward weaker beings. This was 
so new to Philippa, rather used to being the 
faulty member of the family, that it com- 
pensated for the loss of much that she had 
formerly held dear. 

But more than any other pleasiu*e was the 
pleasture of feeling that no one could ever call 
her fat. As each day passed she was one day 
nearer the joyous moment when she would 
weigh herself and find just how much she 
had lost in the first week of her campaign. 
As she pounded home after a long, brisk 
walk, pulses bounding, blood tingling in her 
cheeks, and realized that she had probably 
lost several poimds of the obnoxious flesh, 
she came home well fortified to resist the 
sweet that had always been the crowning 
part of dinner, that for which one dutifully 
ate the homely necessary meat and vege- 
tables without which one was not allowed 
dessert. 

And she did resist, like a true Spartan, 
even though the sharp appetite which so 
much exercise gave her made it necessary 
214 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


to avert her eyes from something that she 
especially liked — chocolate blanc-mange, for 
example, with cream. She was surprised to 
find how much flavor there was in things that 
she had always regarded as very dull indeed; 
steak and lettuce and even spinach she ate 
as she had never eaten before. 

But sometimes the effort to withstand 
temptation was a strain upon her temper. It 
seemed as if something inside gnawed when 
she saw cake with thick frosting. Once, 
after she had been denying herself for five days 
and Mollie brought in her favorite cake — 
chocolate with white icing — ^she had hard 
work to keep the tears back. It seemed 
wickedly heartless that the others so evi- 
dently enjoyed it. And Doreen took that 
time to tease her about her whim. 

What’s the use, Pip? We all know you 
can do it. But why so much effort to attain 
health. Nobody doubts your being well. 
You are just bursting with health.” 

Then Philippa’s temper flared up sud- 
denly. 

‘'Maybe you think it’s a nice thing to 
make ftm of me, but I don’t,” she said, with 
passionate indignation and left the room. 

“Really, this is carrying the matter to an 
15 215 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


absurd degree/’ said Mrs. Gale, really con- 
cerned. ''I’m afraid the child is making 
herself really ill, going without things. And 
what do you suppose it’s all for?” 

Philippa was beginning to cotuit the hours 
now until she could weigh herself and know 
just what her reward was going to be for all 
her self-denial. She had made up her mind 
to walk into town Saturday morning; that 
would be just a week since she had begtm 
the system which the lady in the car said 
had reduced her ten poimds. 

On Friday Anne and Virginia were full of 
plans for that evening and the coming holi- 
day. Philippa had to ward off the usual Fri- 
day evening together because that woiild 
mean fudge, and it was more than mortal 
strength could bear, to make fudge and not 
eat it herself. And it would certainly lead 
to embarrassing questions. She couldn’t 
bring herself to tell the girls about reducing. 
The queer self-consciousness which she had 
felt ever since Doreen’s words had first made 
her feel fat made her sensitive about having 
anyone know. 

"I’ll wait \mtil I find how much I have 
lost and then I’ll just tell them that I found 
I was overweight and took the matter in 
216 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


hand,” she thought. That qtiite filled her 
with a glow of pleasure for the future, but 
it didn’t prevent Anne and Virginia, after 
rather perfunctory suggestions that they 
meet at the house of either of the others, from 
separating without providing for any meeting 
and with the feeling that Philippa was 
putting them off. 

Friday evening she spent in her own room, 
going through all the exercises she could 
remember from health exercises at the school, 
and especially devoting herself to what she 
imagined was the ‘^rolling” the lady had 
spoken of. Saturday morning, she left the 
house early before the girls could call her up 
to get her to do something with them. 

It was a cold, brisk morning. Philippa felt 
a great devotion to the goddess Hygiene as 
she swung along in great style — elbows close 
to her sides, chest up, weight on the balls of 
the feet, mouth closed, drawing deep breaths, 
exulting in motion. A funny line of poetry 
which Doreen had been laughing about the 
day before came into her mind, *‘The pride 
of legs in motion kept us on.” 

'‘That may not be very pretty, but it 
certainly does describe how you feel,” she 
thought. "I wish it was two miles to the 
217 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


drug store that has the scales. Perhaps I’ve 
lost more than ten pounds. I’m sure I 
ought to.” 

When she got to Bennet’s, instead of 
marching gayly up to the scales without caring 
who saw her, she looked rather guiltily 
around before she unobtrusively stepped up 
and slid her penny in. 

The needle oscillated — ^wavered — ^gradu- 
ally settled on the figure it was going to point 
to. Her eyes opened wide in horror. 

Philippa walked straight up to the soda 
fountain and had a sundae and an ice cream 
soda. As soon as she got home she begged 
the cake that she hadn’t eaten the evening 
before from Mollie. She lounged arotmd the 
house all day, reading the new book of her 
pet series that she hadn’t had time to read 
before. She called up Anne and Virginia and 
asked them to come over in the evening and 
make fudge. 

At dinner that evening, as she asked for a 
second piece of cottage pudding, Doreen said, 
laughingly: 

‘‘ Look out, Pip. You’ll get fat if you don’t 
take care. I’ll have to be looking up a diet 
for you,” Philippa laid down her fork and 
looked belligerently at her sister. 

218 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


'^You needn’t tell me anything like that! 
And that woman in the car must have 
dreamt she lost ten pounds. She certainly 
didn’t look as if she had ever lost anything. 
I haven’t eaten one single sweet or starchy 
thing for a week. And I’ve exercised and 
exercised and rolled and haven’t done any- 
thing I wanted to do and have been seeing 
visions of mountains of chocolate and maple 
nut simdaes. And all it did was to make me 
so hungry I ate about twice as much of other 
things. And when I was weighed to-day I 
had gained two pounds and a half instead of 
losing. If I’ve got to be fat, I’m going to 
have some fun while I’m about it.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


T hat evening the thermometer suddenly 
began to fall. When Anne and Virginia 
arrived at Philippa’s house they reported 
that it was bitter cold. As they sat on the 
davenport in the warm living room before 
the blazing logs they could feel the con- 
stantly increasing chill in the world about 
them. Mr. Gale, who had been having a 
business conference downtown, came in about 
ten o’clock, looking as eager as a boy, 
his eyes bright and an unaccustomed color 
in his face. 

It’s freezing. I believe there’ll be skating 
in the morning,” he said, as he came in to 
warm his hands before the fire. declare, 
I believe I’ll get out my skates and have a 
try at it. We haven’t had any skating here 
for foiu* or five years.” 

''And I can try the skates I got last Christ- 
mas,” said Philippa. 

Somehow, after that, Virginia’s birthday 
party, due the next Tuesday, lost interest 
220 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

for them all. Virginians delicate face looked 
a little downcast as she said: 

After what you said the other night about 
parties, Philippa, it makes me feel as if you 
didn’t care whether you came to mine or not. 
It just spoils it all, somehow. And I had 
been looking forward to it for so long.” 

‘'Oh, Virginia, I’m so sorry! I wouldn’t 
have you feel like that for anything. I just 
love parties. And I’ve worn my new blue 
dress twice only, once at Thanksgiving 
dinner at the Randolphs’ and once at the 
D’Aillebouts’. I couldn’t help laughing 
about the boys. Sometimes when you get 
to thinking about things like that it just 
nms away with you. I hardly know what 
I’m saying. It’s like that time when we were 
all out on a farm in the summer and I thought 
a horse was running away with me. I had 
always been crazy to ride and thought I 
could do it the very first time. So they put 
me on an old farm horse and he started off. 
I felt as if I was lost — ^as if all the forces of 
nature that we study about in physics were 
nmning away with me. Everything seemed 
so unreliable. And they told me afterward 
that the horse had just cantered gently. I 
guess my tongue’s like that, and what I say, 
221 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


when things seem funny, hasn’t any more 
to do with what really is than I had to do 
with the way that horse went. But, you 
know, the boys are funny.” 

'' The thing that puts me so out of patience 
is that it is the ones you know are really the 
nicest that are the silliest, the ones that are 
the best at football and baseball, you know, 
and bright in class and all that,” said Anne. 
‘'And the ones that have good manners at 
parties and are polite and ask you to dance 
and like it are the ones that all the other 
boys haven’t any use for. Why do you 
suppose it is?” 

“ Search me,” Philippa had begun, slangily, 
when a thought struck her. “Perhaps it’s 
because it isn’t what they are really interested 
in and so they have time to think about them- 
selves and foolish about their best clothes 
and all that. Say!” 

She stopped and her eyes grew big and 
bright. 

“Well, what is it?” asked Anne a little 
irritably. It always did annoy her, some- 
how, when Philippa got excited about some- 
thing they couldn’t all see. 

“Wouldn’t it be fun to have a different 
kind of a party, something that the boys 
222 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


would enjoy as much as we did; not a dress- 
up thing?” 

‘‘But what on earth is there in winter? 
We can’t go for a picnic.” 

That’s just it — something outdoors. Oh, 
Virginia, do you suppose your mother and 
father would be willing. I’d help — ” 

^^What? How? What do you mean?” 
Virginia’s face was eager in sympathy, but 
she was puzzled. 

^^Just suppose there was skating and it 
lasted and we could have a skating party 
out at the Cartwright lake?” 

‘‘But how would that be a party? Just 
to go and skate? And it’s too far away and 
we haven’t all motors.” Anne looked a little 
disdainful. 

‘‘Oh, I see.” Virginia was more excited 
than Philippa now. “We could ask Mr. 
Cartwright if we could use the lake that 
evening, and it’s too far for people to come 
out unless in some special way. Father 
knows him and Bert Cartwright used to go 
to our school a long time ago, so Mr. Cart- 
wright ’d be interested because of Bert. 
We could take six or seven out in our car and 
perhaps Anne’s father would drive me out.” 

“That would be easy enough,” said Phi- 

223 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


lippa, decidedly. *^Most of the kids’ families 
have cars and they’d be glad to take the ones 
out who haven’t. And we could go out 
before and take all sorts of rugs and cushions 
and gather wood for a big bonfire. I’m sure 
daddy will help us. It’s such a shame 
Bayard isn’t here; he could do the whole 
thing. Instead of ice cream for refreshments, 
you could have hot things and either take 
them out in thermos bottles or, what would 
be more ftm, have a big kettle of hot choco- 
late over the fire, and coffee, perhaps, since it 
would be out-of-doors, and sandwiches. And 
as soon as you got chilled from skating you 
could get warm by the bonfire. And there 
would be plenty to eat. You know how 
starved you always get after you have been 
skating.” 

^I think that is a good idea.” Anne had 
taken fire at last. ^*And it would be a great 
thing, Virginia, for the three of us to put 
something over that was entirely different. 
And of course we’d all help work it out. 
The only thing I don’t like about skating is 
that you get so awfully cold before you can 
get to any place where you can get warmed 
up again. It will be fine, if only there is 
skating and it will hold.” 

224 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


'Tm just sure that there will be,” said 
Philippa, decidedly. '^It just can’t be that 
such a perfectly good idea as this will be 
spoiled. And we’ll only have to wait two 
days. And that will just about give us time 
to make all the arrangements. Let’s look at 
the weather bulletin in the paper.” 

They ran for the paper and, in finding it, 
poured the great idea into the sympathetic 
ears of Mr. and Mrs. Gale. The weather re- 
port waxed favorable to their hopes. A 
wave of intense cold was moving east from 
the Rocky Moimtains. By Monday morn- 
ing it was expected that the temperature 
would be down to zero. And the cold was 
expected to hold for several days. 

'*Oh, Gosh! that’s good!” said Philippa. 
‘‘And we’ll ask Miss Graham not to give us 
any assignments that evening. Oh, I say! 
We’ll ask Miss Graham to the party. I 
know she’d love it. She’s such a good sport. 
She has awfully hard work to keep from 
laughing, sometimes, when some of the 
boys are worse nuts than usual.” 

True to its promise, the cold snap did 
arrive on schedule time. By the next day 
it was reported that there was good skating 
on the tidal basin. Mr. Gale took it upon 
225 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

himself to go out with Mr. Cartwright after 
office hours to test the ice on the little lake 
that was the glory of the Cartwright place, 
about five miles from Clifton Park. The re- 
port was favorable. The three families, 
genuinely interested, busied themselves mak- 
ing the necessary arrangements. Everybody 
went to bed Monday evening in a high state 
of tension regarding the weather. It was a 
jubilant family when it was evident that 
Tuesday was even colder than Monday had 
been. There was not the slightest prospect 
of a thaw. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


W HEN Philippa saw the Cartwright lake 
that evening, a limip came in her 
throat and her eyes smarted with tears of 
sheer delight. It seemed to be the radiant 
dreams of fairy beauty of her early child- 
hood realized. The lake, at the bottom of a 
gentle depression from which the slopes rose 
soft and dark with evergreen trees or sharply 
etched with the bare interlaced limbs of oaks 
and tulip poplars, was surroimded with a 
chain of many-colored lanterns. In a little 
clearing, flames of the newly lighted bon- 
fire were already eagerly leaping skyward. 
Above all was the full moon, so radiant 
that its rays seemed to carry warmth with 
them. Played upon by so many lights, white 
or red, yellow, lavender, or silver, flickering, 
leaping, swaying or calmly constant, the 
smooth surface of the ice was all one radi- 
ance, broken by little pools of color where 
lantern, fire, and moon combined to produce 
227 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


a burnished tint that no color spectrum has 
ever known. 

*'It’s like an opal for the giant Earth’s 
finger,” thought Philippa, dreamily. Then 
she resolutely shook the dream out of her 
head and went to work. Rugs and cushions 
had to be arranged at a safe distance from 
the bonfire. A big kettle of bouillon and one 
of chocolate had to be made ready for the 
grate over a smaller fire. There was enough 
for the three girls and their families to do to 
get ready for the crowd. For they expected 
more than sixty boys and girls to come. All 
of the twenty-five members of 8A were 
coming, M. d’Aillebout was to bring little 
Jean, and cousins and special friends of the 
girls made up the number. Furthermore, 
Mr. Cartwright had asked to include some 
distant relatives of his own. 

It seemed only a minute when the first 
automobileful of guests drove up. As they 
were piling out with enraptured shrieks and 
giggles from the girls and whoops of delight 
from the boys, an intoxicating jingle of 
sleigh bells was heard; Lawrence Tracy had 
foimd some up in his attic and had tied them 
on their car. But that noise was not needed. 
Every variety of horn and siren featured by 
228 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


any car builder seemed to be demonstrating 
just the limit of noise that youthful ardor 
could extract from it. 

In an instant, it seemed, they were on the 
ice. Nobody cared how he looked, and no 
girl cared whether a boy asked her to skate 
with him or not. They just joined hands 
with the nearest one and started off. There 
was a constant rhythmic motion around the 
circle of the lake, and yet individual couples 
and groups were constantly breaking and re- 
forming. Warm in their thick coats, with 
furs or woolen scarfs aroimd their necks, 
with fuzzy tarns or peaked caps pulled down 
over their ears and woolen stockings and 
stout shoes keeping their feet as warm as 
toast, the joy of youth and health made them 
as free from self-consciousness as if they had 
been glad yoimg animals frolicking in a 
world which men and women had never 
entered into. And so the grace of their 
swaying bodies was a delight to themselves 
and to their elders who were lookers-on. 

''Oh, let’s sing! We just must sing!” 
shouted Philippa, as she passed one of the 
girls in her class who usually led the singing. 
A song was started. It happened to be the 
jolly chorus that Philippa had been laughing 

229 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


about a few evenings before. High and sweet 
and pure and joyous a voice rose above all 
the others: *H’d like to spend my life in 
singing — a joyous song, a joyous song!” 

'‘Just hear that Henderson kid!” gasped 
Philippa to Anne with whom she was skating. 
"Would you think it was the same boy who 
gasped like a dying fish in school the other 
day!” 

"And the basses — ^just listen to the bass,” 
Anne laughed. "They’re going to drown 
everything else.” 

So for the whole long ecstatic evening they 
skated or tumbled breathless and laughing 
down on the rugs by the bonfire or drank 
enlivening hot things while they munched 
the delicious sandwiches and cakes that Vir- 
ginia’s mother had provided. Philippa often 
sat happily down by Jeff Randolph and made 
him laugh so much that he hadn’t time to 
feel badly because the doctor had not been 
willing to take the cast off his leg and let him 
try skating," just this one time.” When they 
skated it was jolly fim and when they rested 
in the warmth of the fire it was almost 
better. For there was always something to 
laugh about and somebody was always start- 
ing a song. Some of the boys had brought 

230 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


mandolins without being asked. And, al- 
though they usually refused to play when 
they were asked, this evening they started 
up without being urged, and toward the end 
of the evening most of the skating was done 
to the swinging cadence of quite a respectable 
mandolin club, which boasted also a guitar 
that no one had known Jelf possessed. And 
then, just before leaving, they snuggled down 
around the fire and, while the boys fed it con- 
stantly, story after story made them laugh, 
or brought the delightful shiver of some sug- 
gestion of the mystic, or betrayed that shy 
idealism which the American boy or girl usu- 
ally hides jealously from view. Gazing into 
the glowing heart of a great fire, with the 
heavens flooded with mystic light above 
them, and with the mystery of the forest in 
waiting just outside their little circle of light 
and warmth and human fellowship, tongues 
were loosened and the best of life was reached. 
They felt that, even to the ones among 
them who would have been least suspected 
of such thoughts. So they lingered to the 
last possible moment, and when it was evi- 
dent that they must go they demolished the 
happy camp they had made with a regret 
that was almost reverent. 


16 


231 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


*‘Gosh!” said Philippa, rousing from some- 
thing that was almost sleep as they neared 
home. ‘‘We sure did something when we 
started that party.” 

‘‘Virginia, aren’t you glad I thought of 
it,” said Anne. 


CHAPTER XXV 


T hat evening Philippa, who had been at 
a meeting of the Yoimg Citizens, came 
home to an imusually quiet house. Doreen 
was out. When she opened the door of the 
living room she was surprised to find father 
and mother there. 

''Gosh!’’ Philippa said. "I didn’t know 
you were here; you weren’t making any 
noise at all.” 

"Philippa! Please don’t say, 'Gosh,’” 
said Mrs. Gale, absently. Her eyes were very 
bright and she had a deep pink color in her 
cheeks. And she spoke with but perfunctory 
reproof. 

"Why didn’t you bring Jeff in?” was Mr. 
Gale’s contribution in an absent-minded but 
smiling fashion. 

"Because I didn’t want him to come in, 
I suppose,” Philippa said, tmgraciously. 
Then a spirit of rigid truthfulness compelled 
her to add, "Not that he wanted to.” 

"Oh, Philippa! You haven’t quarreled 
with Jeff?” Mrs. Gale’s voice had the right 
233 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


inflections for surprise and reproach, but she 
didn’t look either unduly concerned or cen- 
sorious. In fact, she seemed a little vague 
and confused. 

''No, we haven’t quarreled, but we didn’t 
agree about whether the people in the dis- 
trict ought to vote or not and I didn’t like 
his kind of arguments.” 

"Perhaps he thought your argiunents were 
'just different ways of saying how you 
wanted to have things,’” the father quoted. 

"No, it wasn’t that way at all,” Philippa 
had said when she began to imderstand that 
her father was teasing her. Her face grew 
very red. There was a struggle, but she 
finally did laugh. "All the same” (it was 
allowable to be cross about Jeff although it 
wasn’t to be cross with daddy) " J don't like 
the sneering sort of way Jeff has when he 
debates a point, and I don’t see why I both- 
ered with him at all. He isn’t half as nice, 
now that he’s getting all right again. I took 
a lot of trouble for nothing.” 

Mr. Gale and Mrs. Gale exchanged a 
glance which Philippa detected. 

"What is it? What do you mean? You 
look as if there were some joke?” she de- 
manded, suddenly tormented with curiosity. 

234 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘'Oh — ^nothing that we can tell you,” they 
both said. But they had great difficulty in 
persuading her that they meant what they 
said. 

“There’s something you’re hiding from 
me? Is it something about Jeff? Oh, is it 
something about Christmas?” 

Mr. Gale seemed to confer silently with his 
wife. At last he nodded. 

“I think we can say it is Christmas,” he 
said, solemnly. Upon this Philippa went up 
in the air again, and it was a long time before 
she simmered down sufficiently to make it 
humanly possible to go to bed. 

Again the next morning the child had a 
feeling that there was something unusual on 
hand. Her father’s blue eyes had a gleam in 
them and there was a tone in his voice as if 
he were excited. He laughed easily and ate 
very little breakfast. There was some secret 
imderstanding between him and mother. 
Philippa felt it. When her father was ready 
to leave, Philippa’s keen eyes detected some- 
thing in the way he stood, very straight and 
as if eager to be about things, that had not 
been there the day before. 

“Gosh! daddy — ” 

“Oh, Philippa, please don’t say ‘Gosh.’” 

235 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘'No’m, I won’t. But, daddy, you do look 
young to-day.” 

The outspoken siuprise in his young 
daughter’s voice might have been flattering 
or not to a father, as one chose to take it. 
But daddy’s teeth gleamed out in a sudden, 
boyish smile. There was an eager, keen 
force in his face, the eaglelike something 
that Philippa sometimes perceived. Mother 
must have felt it, too, for she gave the lapel 
of his coat a caressing touch and then shoved 
him laughingly out of the door. Then she 
ran upstairs almost as if she wanted to get 
out of the way of questions. 

'‘Has anything happened? Do you know 
of an3rthing?” Philippa’s curiosity was al- 
most unbearable. "They seem so different 
to-day.” 

"No, I didn’t notice anything.” Doreen 
awakened out of what seemed to be a pleasant 
dream. 

"You’re sure they haven’t told you any- 
thing? ” Philippa persisted, suspiciously. " Oh, 
I guess it’s La’s letter. Funny that every- 
body seems so specially happy to-day, and 
yet it isn’t about the same thing and I don’t 
know anything about it.” 

Doreen blushed a little. 

236 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


^*Did I seem ‘specially happy’?” she quer- 
ied, vaguely. 

Then she, too, went upstairs and Philippa 
was left alone in an inexplicable and non- 
committal world. 

If there was one thing that made Philippa 
cross it was to have her curiosity unsatis- 
fied. But her beginning-of-a-grievance was 
dropped as soon as she began meeting girls 
and boys on the way to school. And when, 
the day over and the family about the dinner 
table again, she might have claimed her legal 
right as a member of the family to know what 
was going on, the electrical tingle of ex- 
pectancy seemed to have gone out of the air. 
Mr. Gale was deep in some serious train of 
thought, Mrs. Gale looked a little spent, and 
Doreen had become her own tranquil self 
again. Cheated of a sensation, Philippa was 
distinctly irritated. But when her mother’s 
eyes met hers, something in their imques- 
tioning confidence renewed the deep experi- 
ence that lay between them. Whatever 
mother and father wanted to keep back from 
her they were perfectly right in doing. And 
she, as their loyal partner in the business of 
living, must do her best to play the role they 
wanted her to fill. Still, she did wish, if 
237 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


there was anything happening, they would 
tell her soon. 

Above all, she must not ask for her allow- 
ance. Wednesday and Thursday passed in 
deadly calm; Friday also. Another week 
went by, with Philippa becoming agonized 
as the shopping days passed and no mention 
was made of the allowance. Friday morn- 
ing, the 2 1st, dawned, clear, cold, snappy, 
ideal Christmas weather. There were only 
four shopping days left, and she had bought 
none of her presents and had no money 
to buy them with. At school nobody talked 
of anything else. She dreaded to go to 
school. All their reading lessons had a 
bearing on the season; practicing Christmas 
carols was a part of every day’s routme; 
problems in arithmetic and algebra turned 
on buying Christmas gifts. At recess the 
girls were all probing to find out what she 
was going to give, and hinting so industri- 
ously about what they were going to give to 
her that she had hard work not guessing. 
Anne and Virginia wanted her to go down- 
town with them the next day. 

In the face of all this Philippa had held 
loyally to her determination not to ask for 
the allowance. But that Friday morning 
238 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

adherence to a principle was a good deal of 
a hardship. 

'T wonder if daddy would mind so very 
much if I asked for a part of it to-night,” she 
thought, desperately, while she was supposed 
to be doing some originals in percentage of 
profit on Christmas stocks. '‘Everything 
is being picked over. And the shops are 
getting dreadfully crowded. Anne said so. 
He had probably just forgotten all about it. 
He said it would be all right in a few days. 
I wonder” — ^her eyes had strayed toward 
Jeff’s desk and observed that he was absent — • 
“I wonder if I’d better give Jeff a present. 
If it had been a little while ago of course I’d 
have had to. But I don’t believe it would 
make much difference to him now. He’s 
getting so friendly with all the boys ’n’ 
everything, I suppose he doesn’t think much 
about me lately. It looks almost as if he 
didn’t want to talk to me.” She raised her 
head in her own independent way and began 
vigorously to put down figures. She wouldn’t 
admit to herself that a little hurt feeling had 
arisen with the thought of Jeff. 

Just then some one came into the room. 
Why, it was Doreen! 

“Something must be the matter!” Phi- 
239 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


lippa had a feeling as if the floor had dropped 
out of the room and she was suspended in 
space. But Doreen was smiling at Miss 
Graham, who had been her teacher, too, and 
of whom she was very fond. Doreen couldn’t 
smile like that if anything was the matter. 
Miss Graham smiled, too, and nodded her 
head toward Philippa’s desk. The next 
minute Doreen was beside her little sister. 

'‘Mother has asked to have you excused 
to-day,” she said. There was a spark of 
excitement in Doreen’s blue eyes, although 
she was trying to look very grown up and 
dignified. "We are all going somewhere 
together.” 

Philippa turned red with embarrassment, 
for everybody’s eyes were on her and Doreen. 

"Why in the world couldn’t I have been 
told before I left home?” she demanded, 
crossly. 

"We didn’t know then. Father phoned. 
Come on and I’ll tell you.” 

When they were in the cloakroom, "What 
is it?” Philippa asked, breathlessly. 

"Wait until we get outside.” 

"Gosh! Doreen! I’m going to blow up 
and bust unless you tell me. You needn’t be 
afraid.” 


240 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


But, beyond saying absent-mindedly, You 
oughtn’t to say 'Gosh,’ Philippa,” Doreen 
kept her lips tightly closed. 

When they were outside, **Now!” de- 
manded Philippa. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


bill is coming up to-day.” Doreen 
1 was evidently trying to hold on to her- 
self. But her voice was unsteady. 

‘‘What bill?” Christmas and her allow- 
ance had entirely driven ever3rthing else out 
of her mind. Anyway, the bill in itself had 
never been very clear in her mind because of 
all the years in which she had persistently 
shut her ears when daddy began to talk 
about it. Even Zeb Smith didn't make the 
bill anything but a means to an end — ^her 
allowance. 

“Why, our bill — ^the Postmasters’ Salary 
Readjustment bill!” Inwardly Philippa 
noted that Doreen was cross or — something. 
Her voice had taken on a sharp edge which 
came only with moments of perturbation. 

“But, I thought daddy was sure it wasn’t 
going to pass this time? ’ 

“Well, we are not sure that it will. Now 
you mustn’t get your hopes up too much,” 
Doreen warned, in elderly fashion; while her 
242 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


own cheeks were flushed their rare lovely 
pink of excitement and her eyes were at 
their darkest and brightest. ‘‘But some- 
thing very wonderful happened a week ago. 
The Senator of the subcommittee who was 
to have made the report died very suddenly. 
Of course, that was very sad, but we didn’t 
know him and, anyway, another man was 
appointed to fill his place right off and he is 
favorable to the bill. And he saw a chance 
to report it when he thought there would be 
a good chance of its being acted on. You 
see, now a majority of the subcommittee is 
for it. And that’s how it’s all happened. 
Isn’t it wonderful? Last week father thought 
it was hopeless.” 

“It’ll be nice to have it got through.” 
Philippa took up the strain with calm confi- 
dence. “Just before Christmas, too. We 
can — ” 

“Now, Philippa, dorCt! I might have 
known you would go off just like this. 
Nothing’s certain yet. They have to vote 
on it in the Senate after the bill’s reported. 
That’s what we’re going to the Capitol to 
see — ^that is, if it’s voted on to-day. But, 
oh dear! if it should go against us, after all, 
and you’re so certain now, you’ll get excited 
243 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


and go on dreadfully, and that will be so hard 
for mother and father.” 

sha’n’t, either!” Indignation drove 
ever3rthing but this slander on her character 
out of Philippa’s mind. ''Did she — I don’t 
beheve mother thought that.” 

"No, she didn’t say anything about it. 
But I’m so afraid you will. And they’ve 
had such a hard time. Oh dear! I wish 
Bayard were here!” Doreen, who certainly 
was not her usual calm self, winked her eyes 
hard for a few minutes. 

"No, she wouldn’t. She knows. And I 
guess I’m just as anxious not to make it hard 
for them as you are, Doreen.” Philippa 
spoke with much dignity and walked a few 
minutes in impressive silence. 

But she couldn’t be expected, of course, to 
keep this mood long. When they got to the 
house she was in great form, her eyes snap- 
ping, her cheeks red. 

"Shall I go and put on my best dress, 
mother? ” she asked, in her steadiest and most 
reliable tone as they met. 

"No, there isn’t time,” Mrs. Gale said, 
quickly, with a glance at her husband. 
"We will have to hiury. The taxi ought to 
be here now.” 


244 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


The taxi! Then it was truly an im- 
portant occasion. Philippa felt an awe that 
she had not felt before. She knew very well 
that the cost of a taxi from their suburban 
home to the station was no light matter. 
It was to be considered possible only at 
epoch-making times, when they were going 
off to Maine laden with bags and btmdles 
and Itmch boxes. They hadn’t been to the 
Cove for four years now. She felt a sudden 
homesick qualm at the thought. She always 
missed the Cove afresh every time she 
thought of it. The next instant came a 
confused idea that maybe, if the bill went 
through, they might all go the next summer. 
That made her heart throb as the news about 
the bill, even, had not done. But she put 
the thought of the dear Cove out of her mind, 
as she had had to do many, many times. 

Mr. Gale was walking up and down the 
piazza, looking every other second at his watch. 

‘^But, dear, you said it was only a chance 
that it would come up before noon,” Mrs. 
Gale said, a little timidly. ''Oh, there’s the 
cab, surely.” 

It was, and the next minute they were 
skimming smoothly through the unfamiliar 
streets in tmfamiliar ease. Philippa, settling 
245 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


herself with her own version of the air worn 
by the effete rich, felt a new respect for 
''that old post-office bill,” as she had some- 
times called it to herself in her unregenerate 
moments. If the mere suspicion of its passing 
brought about calling a taxi, it must be a 
highly important thing. 

"Are you cold?” Mrs. Gale asked, anxi- 
ously, of her pale, preoccupied husband. 

"I think not,” he said, vaguely. 

Philippa had been to the Capitol a few days 
before, of course. But this was different. 
To file along silently to the very front seat 
(for there were very few people in the gal- 
lery) and to take places there with the 
realization that the very usual-looking men 
sitting at the desks in the big room below 
or wandering restlessly about the aisles and 
corridor at the back had power over the for- 
ttmes of the Gale family, made Philippa 
gaze at them with fascinated interest. 

But the result of those minutes of silent 
scrutiny was distinctly disappointing. 

"I’m afraid they can’t understand the bill 
as well as daddy does,” she confided to Do- 
reen in a perfectly audible whisper. "It has 
very big words in it and they don’t look 
very clever.” 


246 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Several people near them turned to look 
at the child with amusement, and Doreen 
was quite embarrassed. Mrs. Gale smiled 
sympathetically — perhaps she had had her 
doubts, too — and looked up at her husband 
to see if he had heard. But Mr. Gale was 
oblivious of everything about him. His 
boldly cut profile was set in stony lines. 
Only the little pulse in his cheek, which al- 
ways marked extreme agitation, was beating 
rapidly. 

‘'Oh, if it should — ^if it could — go wrong! 
How can he bear it?” she thought. Her 
heart seemed to stand still with the thought, 
and then she felt suffocated. It took all the 
will power of which she was mistress to sit 
still — calm to all outward appearance — 
until her laboring lungs finally seemed to 
have taken in enough air to convince her 
that she was not really suffocating. Then 
she took command of herself again and was 
able to practice what had become a wifely 
religion with her. 

“I’ll think nothing but success. If that 
other thing comes, there’ll be time enough 
to meet it then. But now belief is the one 
thing that can help him. 

“Dick.” Her warm and happy voice 
247 


17 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


roused him as nothing else could have done. 
And when he looked at her cheerful confi- 
dence the icy paralysis of his suspense was 
dissolved. '‘Do show me these men whom 
I’ve got to be grateful to for the rest of my 
life. I do hope they look the part. It ’ll 
help so when we ask them to dinner.” 

When he laughed his face was twenty 
years younger. 

"Not Dubois,” he said. "I will say this 
foreshortened view takes an unfair advan- 
tage of him. After all, his architecture’s no 
worse than that of the squat gods that some 
of our Oriental brothers bum incense to. 
There he is.” 

They bent over the railing to see the bald- 
headed series of more or less concentric 
curves that he pointed out. 

"There’s Senator Dubois, Philippa.” Mrs. 
Gale vivaciously passed information on to her 
daughters. "And that man — no, to your 
left there — ^is Gregory of Arkansas. They’re 
both friendly to the bill.” 

Both the girls excitedly tried to locate the 
gentlemen pointed out. 

"Oh, Gosh!” Philippa said, disgustedly. 
"I didn’t know Senators looked like that! 
The Roman senators didn’t use to.” 

248 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘‘Philippa, don’t Say ‘Gosh,’” Mrs. Gale 
began, purely from sense of habit. 

“Perhaps — ” Mr. Gale began, but, for 
some reason, was silenced by his wife. 

“To think of those men setting themselves 
up* as better than daddy and — ” 

“They don’t set themselves up, Pip. 
They’re put there by the wish of the people 
of their states.” 

“I like that one,” pointing to a slender 
and well-groomed gentleman making his 
lordly way down the aisle. “I’m sure he 
must be for oiur bill.” 

“That? Oh, that’s the secretary of Mason 
of — ” But Philippa had turned disgustedly 
away. The next minute they heard her cry 
out: 

“Why — ^that’s — ^no it isn’t — ^yes it is Jeff! 
He must have made a mistake. His father’s 
only a Representative. And what in the 
world is he staying away from school for?” 

Mr. Gale rose hurriedly after an aside to 
his wife. 

“Where’s daddy going?” 

“He wants to find out when the bill is 
going to be reported.” 

“I can’t catch Jeff’s eye. I guess he’s 
here to get some points about the club.” 

249 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


But Mrs. Gale didn’t hear. She was 
looking intently to a point, almost directly 
in front of the presiding officer’s desk, where 
her husband had located a certain man. As 
if it were a visible answer to the question 
she wanted answered, a little page darted up 
to him and put a note before him — a note 
her husband had, in all probability, sent. 
The man evidently questioned the page, 
then wrote hurriedly. The youngster scud- 
ded back. A minute or so later Mr. Gale 
came back, smiling nervously. 

'‘He has just had the Vice-President’s 
assurance that the bill will be read in a very 
few minutes. It is the next thing on the 
calendar.” 

Then there seemed to be nothing that any- 
one but Philippa could think to say. But 
Philippa, having been put in possession of a 
printed diagram of the Senate Chamber, with 
the desks ntmibered and corresponding num- 
bers listed at the bottom and the names of 
the Senators occupying the desks, was having 
a highly exciting time identifying such men 
as had drifted in to take their places. In 
happy unconsciousness of the fact that she 
was identifying secretaries rather oftener 
than Senators, and of the more serious blun- 

250 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


der of having confused the Democratic with 
the Republican side — in consequence, getting 
everybody wrong — she kept up a tunning 
fire of comment, favorable or unfavorable as 
the case might be. As she had a rooted 
prejudice against either mustaches or beards, 
and an equally firm conviction that there was 
an invariable correspondence between a 
man’s figiure and his mental and moral at- 
tributes, her convictions as to the ruling 
element in that most august body differed 
widely from the general opinion of the coun- 
try. Deeply disappointed in her father’s 
two adherents, in one case because of his 
avoirdupois and in the other because he mis- 
takenly wore a beard, she took comfort in a 
conviction that two machine politicians who 
had balked her father at every turn were on 
the eve of regeneration and would suddenly 
develop into ardent supporters. She based 
this prophecy upon the fact that one man 
walked like a soldier and the other had a nice 
smile. 

Occasionally Mrs. Gale glanced at her 
husband, afraid that the childish chatter 
might disturb him. But his thoughts were 
where Philippa’s clear little voice could not 
penetrate. He was absolutely still except 
251 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


for the nervous motion of his right hand that 
ceaselessly opened and shut a penknife that 
he had taken out to sharpen a pencil with — 
which he had then forgotten. As for herself, 
the childish, happy inconsequence was rather 
pleasant than the reverse. Doreen showed 
no undue trace of excitement. But once, 
when she met her mother’s eye, she slipped 
an understanding hand within Mrs. Gale’s, 
with no word to mar the exquisite sympathy 
of the action. 

All at once Mrs. Gale felt an electrical 
thrill run through her husband’s arm. She 
leaned forward. The clerk was reading. At 
first the involved legal phraseology told 
her nothing. Then she caught the words, 
‘ 'fourth-class postmasters,” and sat back in 
her chair, relaxed and content. The bill was 
really being read. 

"Mother, hasn’t he got a mustache like 
a walrus?” Philippa leaned forward to say 
to her mother. " I do hate to have men wear 
hair on their faces. I won’t let my husband 
or any of my children.” Her mother hushed 
her with a significant glance. And Philippa, 
with bright eyes, leaned forward and lis- 
tened. Then, as the drone went on and on, 
a keen look of disappointment came over 

252 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


her face. thought he’d say something 
about daddy,” she whispered to Doreen. ** Is 
it really our bill?” 

Satisfied with a nod, she settled herself 
to listen in earnest. Mr. Gale, with no 
expression on his face, might have been made 
of stone, save for the nervous opening and 
shutting of the knife. The monotonous 
sound and the involved repetitions of the 
legal jargon — of all methods of human ex- 
pression the most absurd to anyone who has 
been trained to know what clear English 
expression is — ^hypnotized them all into drow- 
siness. It seemed too absurd to have this the 
moment they had all talked about so long 
and looked forward to with such excitement. 
Philippa yawned lengthily. 

At last the clerk, they could see, reached 
the last page. With infinite leisure he handed 
the printed bill over to the official stenog- 
rapher. The president of the Senate ap- 
peared to be making some casual remarks. 
Several men, none of whom Philippa recog- 
nized, arose leisurely to their feet. Then one 
of them began to speak, in casual conversa- 
tional tones. Another, on the other side of 
the chamber, spoke with a heated emphasis 
that seemed, even to the listening child, 
253 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


purely for oratorical effect. The last of the 
standing gentlemen seemed to direct a ques- 
tion at Senator Dubois. The fat gentleman 
lumbered to his feet. Philippa couldn’t 
understand what he said at all. It was all 
very puzzling. The presiding officer put in 
a word or two. Philippa stopped looking. 

As she was leaning back, trying to decide 
from the expression on her father’s face, 
what it all meant, there came an enlivening 
moment when a scattering but still consider- 
able volume of sound arose, followed by a 
still more scattering and obviously much 
weaker one. 

“Good!” Mr. Gale said. “I’m sure the 
ayes have it.” 

“Oh, daddy, has the bill passed?” Phi- 
lippa’s sibilant whisper reached the ears of 
everybody in the gallery and many heads 
were turned to her, Jeff’s among them 

“No, indeed, girlie,” her father replied, 
but still with evident satisfaction. “They 
have only consented to an immediate con- 
sideration of the bill. The other crowd 
tried to have the report tabled, and the 
motion, too, which would have meant that 
we might not have got it out this session.” 

“But—” 


254 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘‘It’s favorable, Pip. The first step won. 
But Mapes — They may know they have 
votes enough to beat it. Now we’ll all have 
lunch in the restaurant downstairs. Ask 
Jeff. Why, the boy seems to have gone. 
Come! I’ll get you settled and then be off. 
I have to get hold of a man.” 


CHAPTER XXVII 


A fter lunch there was the same business 
. of men popping up on all sides and talk 
ing. Philippa had grown somewhat accus- 
tomed by this time to the different kinds of 
language they used. So she could imder- 
stand much of what she could hear. And she 
understood enough to make her grow uneasy. 
What they seemed to talk the most about 
was the great amoimt of money involved in 
these cases. They had a way of speaking 
that made it sound like a monstrous thing 
to harass the poor government with asking 
it to pay out another vast sum of money — 
all of which would have to be borne by the 
taxpayers of the coimtry. The taxpayers 
seemed to be the only ones to be pitied; and 
when Senator Smith spoke of the “attorney’^ 
who would reap ‘'a small fortime from these 
cases/’ with dramatic scorn for a malefactor 
in his voice, Philippa started up with intense 
indignation. It sounded as if the man was 
slandering her own father. She turned with 
256 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


the greatest sympathy to the slandered one, 
but he was smiling quite gayly. 

There Mapes shows his hand,” Philippa 
heard him saying to mother. Mapes, she 
knew, was a chief clerk who had always been 
unfriendly, Philippa couldn’t tmderstand 
how he could be so cheerful. Everybody 
seemed to be speaking against the bill, not 
for it. Or when some one of the Senators, 
who were supposed to be favorable, did 
speak, it was about something that didn’t 
seem to have anything to do with the post- 
masters or her father — ^about whether some- 
thing was constitutional” or what the 
” Attorney General” had said. Philippa was 
getting tired and a little peevish. “I didn’t 
know people could talk so much,” she whis- 
pered to Doreen. ”Even Anne, when she 
gets started laying down the law at the club, 
has to stop sometime.” 

All at once the child started out of a dreary 
sort of daze. A new voice was heard. It was 
a voice that must have had greater carrying 
power than the others. Or was it because it 
soimded like something she had heard before? 
Philippa strained her eyes to see who it was. 
It was a tall man with a strong, clean-shaven 
face, dark eyes, and thick black hair. It was — 
257 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Daddy! I snH that Jeff's father?"' 

It was her mother who answered, sooth- 
ingly: 

''Yes, dear, it is Mr. Randolph.” 

"But I didn’t know he was a Senator. I 
thought he was a Representative!” 

"He was, dear, until about a week ago. 
But Senator Redfern, the man on the Post 
Office subcommittee who died, was from Mr. 
Randolph’s state, and Mr. Randolph was 
appointed to fill out the unexpired term of 
office.” 

"But why didn’t you tell me?” Philippa 
was beginning to be indignant. Doreen — ” 

"Doreen didn’t know, either. We didn’t 
want to raise your hopes too much.” 

"They’re raised now, so what is the differ- 
ence? I’m certain the bill will pass now. 
I know Jeff’s father would do anything he 
could for the postmasters as soon as he found 
how much they need the money. He was 
just as interested when I told him and Jeff 
about Zeb Smith — ^that time when Jeff was 
sick, you know, and I was trying to amuse 
him. And Mr. Randolph’s awfully kind, 
anyway.” 

"Now don’t be sure, dear. He’s only one 
man among many. He is favorable, it’s 
258 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


true, and began to fight for the bill as soon 
as he understood it. He asked your father 
to explain it to him as soon as he was ap- 
pointed — before that — as soon as he knew 
there was a possibility that he would be. 
But he can’t do it all, and while the bill has 
other friends, the people against it are going 
to fight very hard. There are so many 
chances against it, in fact, that we have all 
got to be calm and sensible and make up 
our minds to be brave whatever happens.” 

^'Yes’m. But I’m sure it ’ll pass. Oh-h-h-h! 
I’ll bet that’s why Jeff has been so queer 
lately. I thought he must be angry about 
something.” 

In her confidence that the bill was in com- 
petent hands, Philippa paid very little atten- 
tion to what immediately followed. She 
spent her time watching for Jeff’s return. 
When he did come back she tried to catch 
his eye. But Jeff refused to look in their 
direction; in fact, on one occasion when 
Philippa’s glance did intercept his he imme- 
diately averted his eyes, looking, to all ap- 
pearances, as if he had been convicted of 
some shameful crime. Upon which Philippa, 
with much dignity, elevated her head and 
turned away. 


259 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Some man was talking in such an impas- 
sioned tone that Philippa listened in the 
hope of hearing something really interesting. 
But he was just reeling off a lot of figures. 

“Why doesn’t somebody tell them about 
Zeb Smith?” Philippa demanded of Doreen, 
in what she fondly thought was a low tone. 
“If they just heard about him and knew how 
badly he needed the money, they’d have to 
pass the bill. Don’t you think I might ask 
daddy to ask Jeff’s father to do it?” 

Not at all understanding why Doreen 
thought that would not be advisable, but 
resolved to be, at all costs, perfectly good 
and not trouble mother and daddy, Philippa 
subsided. A few minutes later she leaned 
forward in high expectancy. Jeff’s father 
had the floor. 

In the face of the old-fashioned, spread- 
eagle, political oratory which still was the 
chosen manner of utterance of most of those 
who had spoken, Mr. Randolph used that 
simple, direct method of address which the 
tmwary opponent is apt to consider makes a 
man, “no orator at all.” But he had a voice 
that, while he appeared to raise it not at all, 
somehow penetrated to every corner. People 
had to listen whether they wanted to or not. 

260 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


What he said seemed addressed to each 
man, woman, child, personally. Every word 
that was not absolutely necessary was omit- 
ted. His plan was simple to the verge of 
baldness. He gave first the significant part 
of the statute imder which these postmasters 
had been appointed. Then he sketched, in 
a few sentences, the conditions of growth of 
the country that had changed'wholly'the actual 
amount of service demanded of these men. 

Then — and here Philippa looked at Doreen 
with triumphant eyes — ^he did actually speak 
of Zeb Smith. He read a few sentences from 
the letter which Mr. Gale had quoted to his 
own family on Thanksgiving night. He al- 
luded to other cases like this one — of Luke 
Simpson, of Joseph White, of Hiram Cole. 
He read an occasional telling sentence, in 
the simple confidences of these men to the 
attorney who, alone out of the more than 
himdred millions of the great country, had 
championed their cause. There was appar- 
ently not the slightest desire to work upon 
anyone’s emotions in the conversational tone 
of voice in which Mr. Randolph recorded 
these things. It was a plain man wholly 
occupied in placing the facts in the case 
before his colleagues. So people were sur- 

261 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


prised and a little ashamed of themselves 
when a word from a letter of an imknown man 
relating the rather unequal struggle of the 
average man with hard conditions brought 
an embarrassing mist to the eyes. As Ran- 
dolph went on, a sudden epidemic of throat- 
clearing, coughing, blowing of noses, followed 
his discourse. 

But he veered suddenly and briskly from 
the personal touch to the impersonal conclu- 
sion. He gave the aggregate earnings which 
an equal ntimber of men in the districts 
served by these postmasters might have 
reasonably considered the proceeds of two 
years’ work at that period. Subtracting the 
amoimt actually paid in salaries to the claim- 
ants, he called the remainder the govern- 
ment’s moral obligation to these seven thou- 
sand postmasters for the use of two years of 
their lives. In comparison with this total 
the amount estimated by the Post Office 
Department as the sum total due under the 
readjustment sought by the bill was small. 
The slogan, ‘^Almost two millions mulcted 
from the hard-working taxpayers of the 
country” lost its force. It was less than 
half the “government’s moral obligation.” 
Mr. Randolph closed: 

262 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


*^This is not a matter of charity or of 
sentiment. It is a matter of common busi- 
ness honesty. No coimtry that does not pay 
honestly for service honestly rendered can 
expect to be honestly served. No country 
that repudiates its just debts can stand. 
Mr. President, I move that the debate on this 
Bill be closed and that the vote be taken.” 

All of the leaders of the opposition were on 
their feet, seeking recognition by the pre- 
siding officer. That gentleman consulted 
his watch. 

''The Chair rules that the two hours al- 
lowed for debate have expired. The Sena- 
tors are asked to take a standing vote. The 
ayes will stand.” 

As the Senators in favor stood, Mr. Gale 
leaned tensely forward and began to count. 
Philippa also coimted — all four of the Gales, 
in fact. 

Mr. Gale finished first. 

" Sixty-eight present. There may be some 
Senators paired. I make thirty-six — too 
slim a majority if everyone present votes.” 

Philippa had counted forty, but said 
nothing. Maybe she had included some 
secretaries ! 

"The noes will stand.” 

18 263 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


''Twenty-eight.” Philippa, this time, made 
the count first. "Oh, daddy, we’ve won!’* 

Mr. Gale was keeping a painfully rigid 
hold on himself. 

"Wait — it’s not over. They can ask for 
roll call, and in the meantime hustle some of 
their men in from the cloak room or offices.” 

Sure enough. Senator Smith was on his 
feet, demanding that the roll be called. And 
while he was speaking a number of men 
hurriedly left the room. 

"We’ll see what they can do now,” Mr. 
Gale said between his teeth. 

Philippa glanced at her father in utter 
confusion. But a glance at his set face 
warned her she must not ask questions now. 
So she sat in forced silence, eying the scene 
below, which all at once seemed utterly dis- 
orderly, men going out and coming in. Fi- 
nally the President’s gavel fell. 

Then began a long, tedious process. The 
clerk read the names of the Senators, alpha- 
betically by states. Mr. Gale marked each 
vote as it was given on the printed slip he 
held. It took more than ten minutes. As 
certain votes were given, Mrs. Gale could 
see her husband’s face become more stern or 
relax a little. Philippa tried to keep the 

264 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


count, but got utterly confused. When the 
last name was reached she was in utter woe, 
for, according to her record, the bill was 
defeated. She was so absorbed in trying to 
keep from crying that she did not see her 
mother’s face. When she saw father and 
mother squeezing each other’s hands like 
two children she thought they were trying 
to console each other. That made it almost 
impossible to keep from cr3dng. 

She was standing a little apart, a forlorn, 
desolate little girl, her heard filled with rage 
against those who had “cheated” her father 
out of success, when she heard some one at 
her elbow say, in a casual tone: 

“ Oh, hello, Philippa !” She whirled around. 
It was Jeff. 

“Say, I sure am glad the bill passed.” 
Jeff’s pleasure for once got the better of his 
embarrassment. He was grinning broadly. 

“ Wh - wh - what? ” Philippa stammered. 
But Jeff was far ahead of her, almost at the 
door. 

“Gosh!” said Philippa, out loud, although 
nobody heard her. “I don’t even know how 
to coimt.” 

She looked at father and mother, so radi- 
antly happy that they looked hardly older 
265 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


than Doreen. And Doreen, the dignified 
and self-contained, was hugging her mother 
and laughing and crying at the same time. 
Just at that moment Mrs. Gale looked 
around for Philippa — missing something. 
And Philippa, darting toward them, was 
seized by father’s hand. 

''Why isn’t Bayard here?” sobbed Doreen. 
"Oh, look!” cried Philippa, in horror. 
"Look at Daddy’s hand!” 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


T he blood was streaming down his wrist. 

It was Philippa who first got out a 
handkerchief. 

*^ln a minute it would have stained his 
nice clean cuff!*’ she said, as tragically as if 
that would have been the worst thing im- 
aginable. She was wrapping the handker- 
chief around the finger and was lifting his 
hand. 

^'Hold it above your head, daddy. That’s 
what they tell us to do at school.” Mr. 
Gale, so dazed that he looked §,bsolutely 
foolish, was contemplating his young daugh- 
ter and his hand as if neither quite belonged 
to him. The blood was soaking through the 
small bandage. 

” Don’t know what happened,” Mr. Gale 
said, confusedly. Then, his eye falling on 
the floor, ”I see. Must have been that 
knife. Had forgotten I had it in my hand. 
Oh, that’s all right, Pip. Enough fuss. 
Can’t stop.” 


267 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


By this time Doreen had added her hand- 
kerchief, and Mrs. Gale was looking arotmd 
distractedly. 

‘Tndeed, Dick, you’ll have to have it 
attended to. Hold it imder running water.’^ 
^'Haven’t time, I tell you. I’ve got to get 
the word to them. Think of its going 
through the last day before the recess!” 

''To whom? Oh, it’s getting worse all the 
time! Who’s the nearest doctor?” 

"The postmasters, of coiurse. They can 
hear in time for Christmas. I’ve got to 
begin wiring them — ” 

"But the President hasn’t signed it yet.” 
"No doubt of that. It’s in the Post Office 
bill. Besides, Randolph knows him — from 
his state — says there’ll be no difficulty. 
But I’ve got to get at it.” 

"But you’ll have to stop long enough to 
have this attended to. Doreen — ” 

By this time, in that strange way in which, 
all at once, a place where you think you know 
no one is full of people you know, several of 
their friends began to come toward them. 
Among them was Jeff. 

"Wait a minute.” He had opened and 
folded into a compact bandage a large hand- 
kerchief, wrapped it around the finger in 
268 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

place of the blood-soaked ones, and, knotting 
the end and inserting a pencil in the knot, 
was twisting it. After a minute or so the flow 
of blood ceased. Mr. Gale, who had sub- 
mitted with some impatience to all this fuss 
which was keeping him from his real business, 
had to yield to further interruptions by 
people who came forward and insisted on 
congratulating him. When the way was 
clear again: 

^'Now I must get to the telegraph office. 
Mary, suppose you phone to the office for 
me, or perhaps I’d better go there. We’ll 
have to write them all out.” 

‘^What do you mean, Dick? You don’t 
mean to say you expect to wire all your 
clients — seven thousand of them. Why, 
We’d have to mortgage the house to do it!” 

He looked at her vaguely. 

”Oh yes, I suppose it would. But I want 
them to know. They’ve got to know. Think 
what a Christmas it ’ll be for them. They’ve 
waited so long. Oh, Mary, we’ve got to do it 
for them!” 

”How about giving it to some news ser- 
vice? They’ll all see it in their local papers, 
won’t they? Or be told? ” 

It was Doreen who made this simple and 

269 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

very practical suggestion. Mother and fa- 
ther looked at her with actual awe. 

Daniella come to judgment! Say, 
Mary, I begin to think this thing has done 
me up a little. That was about as asinine — 1” 
He laughed. And the laughter was as 
refreshing as a dozen vacation trips and two 
dozen sanitariums could not have been. 
They all laughed, foolishly, consumedly. 
And when they had sobered up a little, in- 
duced to do so by curious glances that were 
being cast in their direction, it was again a 
sane and stable, if unusually joyous, world 
they found themselves in. 

''All right, Doreen. And in reward for 
your superior intelligence 111 let you take 
this telegram to the Press rooms. Get Jeff 
to go with you, and Philippa, too. She 
ought to be in it. Yes, and wire the news to 
Bayard first. George! It makes a man of 
me again to have a chance to send such news! 
Tell him to come home at once. I’ll need 
him, and it’s only a day or two earlier than he 
would be starting, anyhow. I think your 
mother and I will go home — ^walk all the way 
if it’s necessary to get rid of some of the 
surplus excitement. I could easily do with- 
out a little of it. And then — Oh, then — ” 

270 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


He stopped so long that they found them- 
selves waiting in actual suspense for the 
conclusion. 

"‘And then, won’t I just — sleep!” 

He filled his limgs with a deep, long, satis- 
fying breath. And nobody but his wife 
knew — and she only partially — ^what burden 
he must forget before he could enter upon 
happiness. 

'^Oh dear!” Philippa said, conscience- 
stricken. ^*1 kept forgetting all the time 
how hard it was for mother and father. And 
we were all going to help so much and I 
didn’t do one single thing!” 

‘'Why — ^you — ” father began, impulsively. 
But a warning look from mother stopped 
him. “You all helped more than you know,” 
he finished, a little tamely. 

“And this must be my fortune, all mixed 
up with everybody else’s Only it was a 
dark man — and daddy’s fair.” 

As the father and mother started on the 
long walk in cold, snappy air they had pre- 
scribed for themselves, Mr. Gale said: 

“I yield to your judgment, of course, 
where the children are concerned. But I 
don’t quite see why the child shouldn’t have 
known. It was certainly due to the child 
271 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


that Randolph was interested. As soon as 
he got started he was interested because of 
the justice of the claims. He wouldn’t have 
acted if he had not been convinced of that. 
Then, too, there are a great many claims in 
his district. But it was Philippa's chatter 
about Zeb Smith when she had Thanksgiving 
dinner with them that caught his attention. 
He was both amused and touched by the 
way she sat up there and tried to entertain 
them. But she made it all so real and hu- 
man that he couldn’t forget it. He told me 
so the first time he took the matter up with 
me. And the coincidence of his being ap- 
pointed to poor Redfem’s vacant place 
clinched the business. But what’s this about 
a dark man? Of course, the child was en- 
tirely unconscious about the effect she was 
producing.” 

”It’s just for that reason that I don’t 
want her to know it. I want her to be able 
to tell her little stories and act her little 
dramas in her natural desire to entertain 
people and make them happy without having 
a conscious object but just that desire. You 
asked about the dark man? Oh, that’s just 
a foolish card fortune. Not but that Mr. 
Randolph is dark enough to look the part. 

272 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Oh, Dick! What a Christmas we’ll make for 
the children! I’m going to be just foolish 
this time. But I’m starting so late. I’m 
afraid it ’U be hard work to get things 
ready.” 

”I don’t quite see. We have glittering 
prospects, of course, but — ^we mightn’t — ” 
P'or the first time a shade fell over Mr. 
Gale’s face. 

”Dick, for just about all my life I’ve been 
giving pocket handkerchiefs at Christmas 
when what I wanted to give was fur coats — 
in a Pickwickian sense. This year I’m going 
to splurge!' ' 


CHAPTER XXIX 


P hilippa dear, I think it would really 
be better for you not to sit up until 
Bayard comes. His train may be delayed 
still more. And you'll get so excited. You’re 
batting your eyes now.” Mrs. Gale spoke 
gently, for she knew how her little daughter 
had set her heart on being up when the 
adored Big Brother got home. 

''Oh, mother!” With a gigantic effort 
Philippa kept back the tears. But her effort 
at self-control made her disappointment all 
the more piteous. "I don’t want to tease, 
if you really think I ought to go to bed. 
But, indeed, mother, I don’t believe I could 
be any more excited than I am. And going 
to bed only makes that worse. I’m afraid, 
no matter how I tried, I couldn’t go to 
sleep.” 

"Good gracious, Pip, your eyes are just 
exactly as big as saucers!” Doreen tried her 
hand at a change of subject. But Philippa’s 
eyes were still beseechingly fixed upon the 
274 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

Source of Rightful Authority. It was too 
much for the Source to withstand. 

^‘Oh, well, it will be only two hours or so 
more. I think you might stay up just this 
one special time. After all, you can sleep 
late in the morning.” 

'^'Late in the morning’ — oh, mother, now 
that I’ve got my allowance, and it ’ll be Satur- 
day, I’ll have to start downtown just as soon 
as I can get through breakfast.” Philippa’s 
face was again a study in consternation. 

Mrs. Gale laughed good-humoredly. 

*'I think we’ll just have to give up — sus- 
pend all laws — call this a moratorium.” 

It was hard to say whether Philippa was 
more full of gratitude or of care. She with- 
drew to her own room in order to have quiet 
in which to make out her list for the next 
day’s shopping. The other members of the 
family, in the restless hours before Bayard 
could be looked for — ^he had begged them not 
to meet him since all trains were late — often 
passed her door. Whenever they did so 
they saw the child, with impressive serious- 
ness of countenance, bent over her writing 
desk. Usually she was chewing the end of a 
pencil. Once when her mother paused a 
moment Philippa looked up rather sadly. 

275 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


*^Oh dear! twenty-five dollars seemed 
enough to do everything I wanted to. But 
now when I put everybody down and add it 
all up, it doesn’t.” 

‘‘It won’t be that way with the Fortune,” 
Mrs. Gale added, jubilantly. “That’s going 
to be enough to put everything down on 
paper, add it up, and multiply, and still have 
enough.” She seized Philippa arotmd her sub- 
stantial waist and pulled her to her feet, 
dancing around and around to the jig she 
sang. Panting and out of breath, they had 
to stop for a minute, and Philippa had just 
said, adoringly, “Oh, you dear, fimny, little 
mother!” and mother had responded, “I 
believe you only really love when I’m 
foolish,” when there came a soimd of hurry- 
ing feet on the piazza. The next instant 
Bayard’s jubilant voice sang out: 

“Hello there! How’s the royal family? 
Got the crown jewels safe? Merry Christ- 
mas! Gee! What kind of a morgue have 
you got here? All been murdered for your 
wealth already? Almost as speedy as New 
York? Just one of the little penalties of 
being rich!” 

Laughing, scurrying, they all ran. Some- 
where on the staircase they met. And then 
276 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

the Gale family looked for a minute like 
nothing so much as the center of a most 
satisfactory scrimmage. 

Bayard at last extricated himself, and 
sltmg out his hand to his father’s. 

*H’ll tell the world I’m glad. And proud! 
Who says the right team doesn’t go to the 
goal when a real man’s got the ball?” 

The two hands gripped — hard. It was 
man to man, level eye to level eye. Perhaps 
that was the first moment that Richard 
Gale really knew that he had won. 


CHAPTER XXX 


W HEN Bayard came down to breakfast 
the next morning he f otmd four persons 
making a pretense of eating breakfast in the 
midst of feverish discussion. Philippa even 
had a writing pad beside her plate so she 
could jot down ideas as they occiured to her! 
Mr. Gale was tense; Mrs. Gale jtunped at 
every sound and clenched her hands when 
somebody almost upset a cup of coffee. 
Doreen’s manner was a shade overpatient 
when Philippa, for the fifth time, asked her 
opinion about some item she had on her list. 

Bayard sitrveyed them all, a twinkle in his 
blue eyes. 

'^Oh, Bayard, won't you meet me down 
town?” pleaded Philippa. want to ask 
you what you think about — ” a consciously 
meaning look at her father. Can’t you 
meet me at Dawson’s at eleven, first floor?” 

‘‘You wanted to meet me at eleven,” Mrs. 
Gale commented. “ Of course if you don’t — ” 
“But I do.” 


278 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Could you come to my office some time 
before noon, Bayard? There are several 
things I’m wondering if you wouldn’t attend 
to for me.” Mr. Gale’s face cleared at the 
cheering thought. ”I really don’t quite 
know how I am going to get through every- 
thing.” 

‘^Siurest thing in the world.” 

‘‘But, Dick, we really ought to get to- 
gether this morning about that matter,” 
said Mrs. Gale. 

“You are quite sure, Doreen, that that 
Press chap will do his best to have proper 
publicity given to the bill?” 

Bayard laughed outright. 

“What you people really want is a Lord of 
Misrule. What they used to have in Eng- 
land, you know, in the old days. A chap to 
take charge of the revels. If we don’t have 
something of the sort, I can just see certain 
members of the joyous Gale household finish- 
ing up at a hospital.” 

“Truer word was never spoken, Bayard. 
We need a Lord of Misrule. And you’re 
IT.” Mrs. Gale laughed mischievously. 

But Bayard nodded with all the seriousness 
in the world. 

“I’m the one. Now, see here, folks, I’ve 

279 


19 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


got several ideas rattling around in my bean. 
Had time to think coming down. You’ve 
all been through a pretty wearing time — 
mother and dad, especially — although, to 
judge from appearances, Pip is the one really 
bowed down by weight of responsibility. 
I’ve been away from it all. So I’m fresh as 
a daisy and strong as a horse. Moreover, 
I’m mightily concerned in making this special 
Christmas the best ever. One of those things 
we’ll all remember always.” His voice had 
taken on a different, lower tone. ^‘Some- 
thing that nothing can ever take away from 
us. If there’s one thing more than another 
that I’m thankful for, it’s that we’ve grown 
up with the idea that it’s more necessary to 
say right out that you’re happy than it is 
to say you’re not. I remember when muzz 
said, ‘The one advantage that our maturity 
has over your youth is that we know when 
we’re happy and you don’t. And I don’t see 
why youth shouldn’t be trained to recognize 
and prize the precious moments instead of 
always losing the present in looking forward 
to the future.’” 

‘ ‘ Goodness ! Did I say that ? I never have 
appreciated how clever I am!” Mrs. Gale 
interrupted, laughing. 

280 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


You sure did. And it’s mighty true doc- 
trine, I’ve found it. And — chloroform her, 
somebody, while I operate — ^it’s just another 
thing we’ve got to be thankful for, that we’ve 
got the kind of mother that’s got sense 
enough to say it. I used to think all mothers 
had, but now I know that’s not so. Just as 
we ought to be thankful we’ve been brought 
up to say the nice things we think about 
one another when we think ’em and to can 
the other kind, instead of reversing the proc- 
ess, as most families seem to do. Say, I 
seem to be orating. Want any more?” 

*^A11 you’ve got, boy,” dad said. 

‘'Well, we’ve got a chance here for a big 
effect. If it was on the stage they’d make a 
big hit with it. But, ten chances to one, if 
we don’t plan a bit we’ll get into an exhaust- 
ing whirl and everyone of us get so tired and 
confused that we’ll end up almost as peevish 
as we used to be Christmas night when we 
were all little kids. Why can’t we be a little 
artistic?” He showed all his white teeth in 
his own beguiling grin as he asked the ques- 
tion, but he hurried on without waiting for 
the answer. “I’ll say I’d like the chance to 
edit, cut, stage, this Christmas and make it 
perfect in four acts; suspense, philosophical 
281 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


crisis in the third act ; emotional climax in the 
fourth — all strictly according to precepts of 
Lit. VII. Want to let me be stage manager? ” 

''Yes. Fine idea. I’d love it. Gosh! 
Do ! ’ ’ Everybody assented. 

"All right, then. It’s understood. Then 
I do everything everyone else is too tired to 
do. Dad and muzz mustn’t do one thing 
they don’t want to do — ^just self-indulgently 
want. All the other holiday chores, amiable 
paupers, old family retainers, debatable 
cousins, Christmas cards, turn over to me. 
Football season’s over. I’m fresh from train- 
ing, guaranteed to run from six in the morning 
imtil twelve at night without missing once — 
rust out if I’m still. Make out your lists 
and hand ’em over.” 

"We will.” Mrs. Gale sighed a sigh of 
exquisite relief. 

"Well and good. I’ll buy cards by the 
gross, mail, tote around. Doreen and Phi- 
lippa, just tiun over to me whatever you 
want to give Old Nursie, First-Second-Third 
Cook, Old Nursie’s children — ” 

Philippa already had her list ready, which 
she pushed over to him with one of her 
cherished five-dollar bills. 

"Now! Here is a synopsis of the four 

282 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


acts: First act, decorating house, trimming 
tree, ceremony of hanging stockings. WiU 
begin at seven-thirty sharp, Christmas Eve. 
I’ll have all the fixings here if everybody else 
will take an oath that every gift given by the 
house will be mailed by that time, or other- 
wise distributed.” 

Hypnotized into a great enthusiasm, every- 
body promised in chorus. 

Stage cleared, then, for the second act. 
That will begin as soon as the first of us wakes 
up Christmas morning. I imagine that ’ll 
be Pip.” 

‘'Gosh! You’d better believe it,” said 
Philippa. 

"Philippa, don’t say 'Gosh.’ I think the 
grand act of receiving presents needs no boost 
from me. That act will be just Us, the Gale 
family, so darned happy at being together 
and — and everything else — ^that it’s going to 
be our solemn duty to be foolish. Every- 
body swear to be foolish?” 

"I swear!” Mr. Gale led off in sepulchral 
tones that the Ghost in "Hamlet” might 
have copied. 

"Third act: Christmas dinner. Now will 
the Authorities express themselves as to the 
annual problem, ' The-Person-Who-Needs- 

283 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


To-Be-Cheered-Up.’ How many of these? 
The Ones - Who - N eed - What - W e - Can - Gi ve- 
Them. The Ones-Who-Have-No-Home-Or- 
Children?” His eyes were fixed more or less 
accusingly on his mother. 

She laughed outright. 

''As Lord of Misrule I am prepared to be 
fairly indulgent. But also representative, 
not of one party only, but of all parties. We 
have suffered in times past — I now speak as 
representative of the hitherto voiceless ma- 
jority — ^we children, from some of those 
Estimable Ones. I remember having a viru- 
lent hatred of one — ^Auntie Smith — ^who 
wasn’t an aunt at all. She was a fimereal 
person. She shattered all my happiness in 
the toy motor boat Santa brought me by 
telling me how many starving Hindus it 
would have fed for a month. Of cotu*se, we 
want the Ones-Who-Have-No-Homes. We’d 
be lonesome without them. But I insist on 
censorship. And, as censor, I insist on the 
Ones having, unlike Auntie Smith, a sense of 
hiunor. I also think they should, on this 
special Christmas, be in the minority — ^prefer- 
ably not more than two — and male and fe- 
male at that — -and not too old to take an in- 
terest in each other.” 

284 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘'You ridictilous boy.” laughed mother. 
“But really there is my Aimt Harriet — that 
is, I’ve always called her ‘Aimt.’ I think 
she’s really some kind of a cousin. She’s at 
the nicest kind of a really-truly Gentle- 
women’s Home, but it is a Home. And, 
somehow, she manages to be lots of ftm. I 
think she’d pass the censor. And then 
there’s Mr. Cartwright — ” 

“You don’t mean the rich Mr. Cart- 
wright, do you? ” 

“In money, yes. But that’s hot his fault. 
He has money and a house and a housekeeper. 
But he lost his wife a year ago and his only 
son — only child — ^is across the water. He 
stopped and talked to me as he was passing 
the other day, and I know he’s lonesome. Be- 
sides, I want to get a donation from him for 
the hospital.” 

“Oh, shameless! But we’ll admit him if 
he has a real sense of humor. Because the 
place cards are going to be jokes, real jokes 
on ourselves to act as antidote to too much 
sweet stuff — ^not just disguised compliments.” 

“He’ll pass the censor.” 

“Then for the fourth act I’ve got some- 
thing special. It’s usually the fourth act 
that falls down, especially in the Christmas 
285 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


play. You’ve had all your presents and 
everything has happened that you’ve been 
looking forward to. You know just what 
you’ve received and what you haven’t. And 
then you slump. So in the evening we’ll have 
the tree. And I’ve got an idea that I’m 
going to spring on you that ’ll be a cor- 
rective of the usually inartistic fourth act. 
And each one of us can have the one he most 
wants here.” 

^^Anne ’n’ Virginia,” Philippa hurried to 
get in. 

‘^But they’re two.” 

‘*No, they’re one, and it’s Anne.” 

“Won by your wit,” Bayard said. “As 
Lord of Misrule I grant your request. 
Next?” 

“Senator Ran — ” Mr. Gale had begim, 
when the others took the word out of his 
mouth so emphatically that no more formal 
assent was necessary, any more than Mrs. 
Gale’s suggestion of “Jeff” seemed necessary. 

“The D’Aillebouts.” Everyone joined in 
that uproariously. 

“Now Doreen?” 

But Doreen was not ready. 

“La’,” Bayard said, with a significant 
look at her. 


286 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


‘‘Jess!” Doreen flashed back at him, with 
a teasing smile. 

“Jess goes.” Bayard rose from the table 
with an imperturbable countenance, so Do- 
reen couldn’t tell at all whether her shot had 
told, or whether her suspicions were correct. 
“And let’s meet at Prior’s for lunch. One- 
thirty, sharp. The lunch is on.” He pulled 
his bill-fold out of his pocket and went 
through it meditatively. 

“The house.” Mr. Gale saved the day. 
They scattered hilariously. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


B ayard rapped at Doreen’s door at 
eight o’clock Christmas night. The door 
opened almost immediately. Doreen stood 
there, so lovely in her dainty dress that 
Bayard’s usual heartily mechanical indorse- 
ment of his sister’s appearance was changed 
to a slow, low: 

**Oh, say — I — ” as he looked at her. 

was just going to take these flowers 
down so everyone could enjoy them.” She 
held a tall jar of the most wonderful roses, 
so delicately pink, and yet with such splendor 
in their stately growth, that their fitness to 
express the girl who held them impressed her 
brother. 

” Wonder if he thought of it,” he thought. 
But his only comment was, ”Some taste La’ 
showed, I’ll tell the world.” The next in- 
stant he said, musingly, ”By the way, what 
did La’ give you last year?” 

” A book. Why?” 

‘‘And the Christmas before?” 

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PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

“A box of candy, most of which he ate 
himself.” Doreen laughed a little as she 
said this. 

'^I see. And this year, flowers,” Bayard 
said, thoughtfully. ‘‘Interesting sequence.” 

“What do you — ?” Doreen began, and 
then stopped in confusion. “Wasn’t it 
lovely I got the gray suMe slippers and 
stockings to match? I suppose mother told 
you I needed the stockings,” she went on, 
hurriedly. “Oh, Bayard, did you ever see 
such a Christmas?” She put the flowers 
down to touch caressingly some of the things 
that made, to the boy’s bewildered eyes, a 
confused mass of delicate colors and lustrous 
fabrics and lacy stuff all over her bed. 
“I’ve had single lovely things before, but 
never all the things to go with it, all at one 
time. And this perfectly fresh and new 
dancing dress, this darling evening doak 
ready for the first of the dances to-morrow 
night. And now I’ve got every single differ- 
ent kind of shoes and slippers to go with 
everything I have. I really think shoes and 
stockings are about the most difficult things 
of all. And then, my suit and hat are almost 
new, and this dress. And gloves, as many 
as I need It seems almost too good to be 
289 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


true. I wonder if Fm horrid and selfish, but, 
oh, I do love pretty things so!” 

There was something almost pathetic in 
the gesture with which she passed her hand 
over the silvery blue folds of the cloak. 
Bayard watched her with a new gentleness 
in his face, and a new shyness. But he said, 

'"You just wait until you see my artistic 
taste let loose on my own evening clothes. 
And the Tux, too. Do stand still a minute 
and let me look at you.” 

She stood still a moment, her arms grace- 
fully outstretched, and then began to turn 
daintily around and around like an accom- 
plished mannequin. 

that evening dress?” he demanded. 

^Hnformal evening or formal afternoon,” 
she said, happily. '*Just exactly right for 
this evening.” 

^'It’s gray — and yet it isn’t gray. What 
gives it just that color?” 

First time I ever knew you were in- 
terested in girls’ dresses.” 

^‘I’m interested in that one — ^moderately.” 

‘*Well, it’s a lovely tone of light-gray 
georgette over very faint pink — 'flesh’ it’s 
called. But it’s the floating drapery that 
makes it, and that little gleam of silver. 

290 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


That was muzz’s idea. She has the dandiest 
taste. I’ll bet she had pretty things when 
she was a girl.” 

Bayard said, consider- 
ing the bright, bright eyes, the fair, softly 
waved hair that seemed so alive to-night that 
light seemed to fairly live in little pools of 
stm-shot golden brown. And the exquisite 
pride of the uplifted head, the tender beauty 
of the mouth. And the deep, lovely color in 
her cheeks. When had his pretty sister 
ever been so pretty before? No, ^‘beautiful” 
was the word. And why? Could it be 
La’? 

“ You're all right,” he said, a little gruffly. 
And he bolted suddenly from the room. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


D ownstairs the Lord of Misrule shook 

off his sentimental mood and looked 
piercingly aroimd. It had been his decree 
that all of the disorder of tissue paper and 
ribbons and Christmas cards and seals should 
be removed. He had not only issued the 
decree, but, knowing that Mollie had a right 
to a bit of jollification of her own and a 
Christmas party at her sister’s home, he had 
executed his own orders. So, with the ex- 
ception of the big tree, a bit of tinsel gleaming 
here and there but otherwise in partial 
eclipse until the current should be turned 
on, and the graceful fringes of evergreen 
vines, looped up here and there about the 
walls with gorgeous red poinsettias, the living 
room showed quite its usual harmonious, 
orderly comfort. 

He took something out of his pocket, 
wrapped it in a square of silver paper, 
pinched it into the shape he desired, and 
wired it on the topmost branch of the tree. 
292 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


Then he threw another log on the fire, for 
the setting of the sun had intensified the cold, 
and threw himself down on the davenport 
for a minute’s rest. Even though Mr. Cart- 
wright had taken home their other dinner 
guest and so freed Bayard, the boy had been 
in violent action every minute of the waking 
hours of four long days. And even Bayard’s 
splendid frame was achey-tired. But he 
smiled confidentially into the fire as he re- 
verted to the blissful relief he had felt when 
he knew that he wouldn’t have to escort 
Aunt Harriet home. 

‘'Gee! Ill bet the other old ladies have 
heard a lot by this time about the gallant 
Mr. Cartwright,” he thought. “She cer- 
tainly did brighten up when he gave her his 
arm to take her in to dinner! Mighty decent 
of Mr. Randolph and JeflE to gather up the 
girls. Don’t believe I’ve got pep enough just 
now to really enjoy going even for Jess. Got 
to get a little rest to make the fourth act go 
off all right.” 

He must have dropped off into a tiny nap, 
for when the bell rang it shocked him to his 
feet with a violent start. 

It was La’. Bayard felt a little constrained 
about meeting him. Those flowers, now, 
293 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


were going it a little too strong. La’ was of 
the best brand of pals. But when it came 
to your sister — However, the minute he 
saw La’s gorgeous head of irrepressible red 
curls and saw the familiar grin that adorned 
his features, all was forgotten. An upper- 
cut that landed somewhere in the region of 
the smartly tapering waist of La’s new spike- 
tail coat was the signal for a friendly scrim- 
mage which was wonderfully revivifying. It 
ended when Bayard drew his friend up under 
the brightest light in the room and said: 

‘‘You needn’t think you are the only 
pebble that has got itself incased in gorgeous 
togs, even if I — ^more worthy — am at present 
attired in dad’s refitted hand-me-downs. 
Here’s mine.” He brandished a check before 
La’s eyes. ‘‘Look here! Is it the honest-to- 
goodness truth that they have to be pinched 
in like that at the waist? I’m afraid I’ll 
look as if I wore corsets. My shoulders are 
about double my waist.” And the serious- 
ness with which the two friends settled down 
to talk about all the latest ideas in black 
broadcloth consorted ill with their public 
utterances on the score of the undue atten- 
tion paid to mere clothes by the modem 
female. 


294 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

They were interrupted by the arrival of 
the D’Aillebouts, Madame tall and gracious 
and lovely in white so as not to mar the 
festivities by the evidence of mourning; M. 
le Colonel in an especially decorative uniform ; 
Jean with a parcel tied up in white tissue 
paper with red and green ribbon and plas- 
tered all over with Christmas seals, according 
to the fashion he had acquired from the 
fourth grade of the Clifton Park school.^ 

''It is the gift of Noel to Mees Phileeppa,'' 
explained his proud father. "He has in the 
American manner earned the money for it 
himself. Brigitte she say that the clothes 
he have destroy in carrying the coal into 
the cellar are of more worth. But that makes 
nothing if he learn the American — ^what you 
call heem — 'push’?’’ 

At this point Doreen descended, and that 
ended coherent conversation on the part of 
La’, so Bayard withdrew grumbingly. But 
the Randolphs were at the door with the 
three girls. Philippa was detached from the 
adoration of her shining new bicycle. Mr. 
and Mrs. Gale appeared. It was soon time 
for the curtain to roll up on the fourth act. 

"Virginia at the piano, please," said 
Bayard, briskly. And Virginia obeyed with- 
20 295 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


out a word. When the clear, sweet voices 
of the three friends led off, everyone, after 
scarcely any pause at all, gathered around the 
piano and joined in ''The shepherds watched 
their flocks by night.” But it was Jess’s 
voice that led them all. La’ had a fair tenor 
voice; the older men, after a moment’s 
hesitation, yielded to the familiar melody; 
Bayard rumbled in the bass. Mrs. Gale 
remembered that hers had usually been the 
responsibility for the contralto. It was 
astonishing how full and sweet the im- 
promptu chorus was. 

When the last note of the last verse of the 
last carol anyone could recall had died away 
and they were seated again, Bayard stuweyed 
the little group that watched him expect- 
antly, drawn up in a semicircle about him. 
His eyes rested on mother and father looking 
like a pair of particularly gay contemporaries 
of his own. La’ somewhat self-consciously 
but firmly intrenched by Doreen’s side, the 
D’Aillebouts in the middle, Mr. Randolph 
and Jeff pleasantly at home on Mr. Gale’s 
left — Jeff exultant because his leg was out 
of the cast — Jess’s mischievous black eyes 
sparkling above her Christmasy red dress, 
Anne at the extreme right — for Virginia had 
296 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


crept close to Philippa. Philippa had a 
determined grip of mother’s hand. 

Before we light our tree our friends and 
neighbors, Monsieiu* and Madame d’Aille- 
bout are so good as to offer us something 
from their own land.” Bayard spoke with 
a boyish diffidence that was very attractive. 

Madame d’Aillebout rose and moved for- 
ward in front of the tree. Over her white 
dress she had thrown a long scarf, heavily 
embroidered in a magnificent Eastern de- 
sign. Her oval face was a clear white; her 
black hair very simply dressed; her eyes 
were wide with a mystic wonder. She looked 
appealingly at her husband. 

” My wife, she wish that I explain that she 
will give to you a vair’ quaint song of the 
fourteenth century of our country in which is 
told the story of the birth of that One for 
whom we make the Noel, and also the part 
that the good St. Nicholas he perform.” 

Instantly Madame d’Aillebout drew the 
scarf closely about her, shrouding her body. 
And, with the motion, she became a woman 
weary almost to the point of fainting, stum- 
bling forward in the phantom hope of finding 
rest and shelter. The song began, a simple 
monotonous little time, plaintive, and with a 
297 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


childishly recurring rh3rthm. Although few 
of the company knew her language inti- 
mately, everyone of them understood the 
little drama. Mary and Joseph arrived, 
exhausted with the journey, at crowded 
Bethlehem. The husband went from one 
hostelry to another to plead that his wife 
might be taken in. He is driven from each 
door. They will not listen to him when he 
tells them he is afraid his wife will die. The 
wife is exhausted, despairing. They find at 
last a stable which the humble owner allows 
them to enter. The Child is bom. The Wise 
Men come to worship the Babe. In the last 
verse St. Nicholas comes to adore and in his 
homage the age-long Church is bom. 

In each of these episodes Madame d’Aille- 
bout, with an apparently slight change of her 
voice, of her face — or rather in the expression 
of her wide, fringed eyes — ^with an apparently 
artless rearrangement of the scarf, incarnated 
the person who spoke, or lived the tender 
drama. At the last, the rich embroideries 
falling straight from neck to hem like a 
stole, she somehow conveyed a sense of 
majesty as well as the embracing love of the 
Christian Church incarnate in the hearts of 
men. It was a simple but a marvelously 
298 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

vivid recreation of the faith out of which 
grew the home festival they were celebrating. 

After she had gone to her seat again, an 
almost awestruck silence fell for a moment 
on the little assemblage. Then they eagerly 
hastened to thank Madame for what was 
really a piece of exquisite art. M. d’Aillebout 
said, openly wiping his eyes: 

''My wife, she is vair’ devote — what you 
call heem? — ^religious.” Then with the ut- 
most gayety he proceeded to present to all 
^'les dames '' — including Philippa, a little 
wooden sabot filled with bonbons — ''pour 
les hons enfants " — since that was what St. 
Nicholas always left when the dawn of Noel 
broke. 

Bayard switched on the electric current. 
In an instant the great, dim tree fiashed into 
silvery radiance where everything that shone 
had flecks of color in it and every bit of color 
sparkled Hke a gem. In the long ' ' ah-h-h-h ! ’ ’ 
that went up there were the deeper tones of 
the men as well as the softer women voices 
and the children’s still childish treble. All 
were children in that moment — that precious 
amulet of a moment, passed from generation 
to generation, incrusted with the precious 
stones of human love. Then Bayard cleared 
299 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


his throat. The engaging boy vanished for 
the moment to make place for the man. 

There isn’t a gift on the tree. I think 
that’s why we all feel as we do, as if it were 
a sort of a prayer. Or a visible thank- 
offering. Perhaps, without really knowing it, 
I wanted it to be that. There is something 
in symbol, even if to-day common sense 
makes us turn on the electric current instead 
of biuning candles. But, if there are no 
presents on it, there are wishes made by the 
three of us — I didn’t include mother and 
father. For if their wishes could be put 
there all of us know they would just be for 
us children. And that would just sort of 
break us all up.” 

*‘I put mine there, all the same. You 
didn’t suppose you were going to leave me 
out. I foimd out what you were up to!” 
broke in Mrs. Gale’s voice with a ripple of 
laughter in it. 

They were all glad to laugh. 

“All right, muzz. I suppose it is that big 
fellow up there. I’m afraid it’s a boomerang 
for some one. But I made Doreen and Pip 
write out the great big wish of each one, not 
the kind we all said to ourselves when we 
saw the tree, but a foolish wish, a child’s 

300 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


wish — ^the next toy we want, just so they 
could end the day as we began it, with a hope 
unrealized. I put mine on, too. There they 
are. See! One in front there — another on 
the back limb by the wall — ^the other almost 
at the top there. There they are visible. 
For I wrapped them up in silver paper, made 
buds of them — the tree’s budded with wishes. 
Oh no, it wasn’t my idea. I’m not clever 
enough for that. I snitched it from Eleanor 
Hallowell Abbott’s story last year. There 
they are, three big buds, with mother’s 
illegal one. And there’s something for 
father, too, that somebody else budded for 
him. So here we go.” 

He picked oflE the nearest silver bud, undid 
it, unrolled the paper, read: 

‘"'A seven-passenger touring car, with a 
seat for each Gale, one for Mollie, and two 
friends beside.’ Gee! That’s a large order 
on Santa. All the more jolly to have it to 
hope for. And this is mine. I ’m afraid you’ll 
think Doreen’s is modest beside mine. ‘A 
motor boat big enough for all but open-sea 
service, with a cabin and bunks for us all, 
and an engine I can tinker on.’ And here’s 
our yoimgest. I ’m sure she wants the earth. ’ ’ 

‘‘No, the sea!” broke in Philippa’s clear 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


voice most imexpectedly, and with a note of 
homesick longing in it that was felt by 
everyone. 

^‘With a little of the earth thrown in, I 
take it. For what she says is, * A house at the 
Cove that’s big enough to have us in it and 
friends all the time.’ Well” — and here his 
contagious laugh set them all off — ''nobody 
can go to bed feeling satisfied with what he 
has, with all that to long for. But don’t be 
oppressed” — ^this to father and mother in 
front of him — "we’ll live just as happily as 
though all those toys could be himg in next 
year’s stockings.” 

"Maybe your mother and I can arrange a 
midsummer Christmas at the Cove and a 
Santa who’ll defy the Union by working 
overtime.” 

"Daddy, you don’t mean it!” It was 
Philippa’s ecstatic voice. 

"Well — ^maybe. The bill carries an ap- 
propriation with it. It might be — ” 

"Perhaps your father and I have a wish 
sometimes that’s suitable for a good big 
Christmas stocking,” Mrs. Gale laughed. 

"A car — and go on a toiu: — ^all the places 
we’ve never been able to get to before.” 

"Perhaps if you know in time we can have 

302 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


the Trenholm’s cottage and get the sweet- 
peas set out. Say, Anne and Virginia, you 
can come.” 

“If you want them, dad. I’ve got cata- 
logues from about a dozen companies. La’ 
and I could easily run it.” 

“And Jeff and Mr. Randolph and the 
D’Aillebouts and everybody can visit us all 
the time ’n’ everything.” Philippa was 
hugging herself. 

“And nobody cares that it’s only ‘per- 
haps,’” said Mrs. Gale, gayly. “We’re such 
accomplished castle builders that we rather 
hate to be hampered by having the plans 
and specifications. But I do think you’re 
neglecting my wish.” 

“Beg pardon, muzz.” Bayard reached for 
the wish his mother had budded. They all 
waited in a rather serious silence. Bayard 
read, “I wish that Philippa would stop 
saying, ‘Gosh.’” 

A shout went up. Philippa looked startled. 

“Of course I won’t, mother. I didn’t 
know you really cared.” 

“‘Cared’!” commented Doreen. “When 
every other sentence of the family for the last 
six months has been, ‘Please don’t say — ’” 

“Now for the last wish. It’s a particu- 
303 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


larly large fat one breathed for father by 
some one whom he never saw.” 

^'Say! This is the real thing!” said Mr. 
Gale, boyishly, actually sitting up straight 
in his excitement. 

think you’d like to read it yourself, 
dad,” Bayard said, grinning. This came an 
hour or so ago, but I thought you wouldn’t 
mind if I saved it. Read it out loud, now. 
No welching.” 

- ^^Well of all the — I So Zeb Smith has 
heard.” 

''But the wish! Read it!” This from 
everyone. 

Mr. Gale read: 

"'Glory be! I hope they’ll make you 
President of the United States. You ought 
to be!”’ 

Then how they laughed. "I’ll see to it 
that the party gets the tip. Gale. Maybe Zeb 
will run me for second place,” Mr. Randolph 
was trying to say. When he could be heard 
again Mr. Gale spoke a little huskily: 

"I don’t know but that it’s the best of all. 
This means that they know — some of them, 
anyway — ^thousands of them, perhaps. It’s — 
it’s something to know. Some of them are 
having a real Christmas, knowing that jus- 
304 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 

tice is done, after all. Those poor, patient 
fellows !/’ 

Philippa was whispering something to 
Virginia. 

can’t, Philippa. I know I can’t,” 
Virginia was saying. 

”But /ry.” Philippa pushed her toward 
the piano. 

Gentle Virginia seated herself. Her hands 
felt for the keys, fumbling about among 
vague, sweet harmonies. She played a few 
notes of a joyous melody — lost it — 

”I can’t. Nobody could put all this into 
music. That is, unless it was somebody 
great. All I can do is to just find sounds. I 
can’t relate one to the other, or tell the 
reason, or tell what ’ll happen. Perhaps 
some day. No. It’s no use. So — ” 

Her hands fell into the spellbound chords 
of one who was great. They all listened 
while ''Holy Night” stilled the childlike 
joy in their hearts to sure, soft, considered 
harmony. As the last chord still lingered 
in the air, some impalpable ghost of a sound 
took Bayard to the window back of him. 

"Oh!” He pulled aside the draperies so 
they all could see. The snow must have 
been falling for some time, for the hillside 
305 


PHILIPPA’S FORTUNE 


was covered with a soft white blanket. And 
trees, like their own tree, stretched fleece- 
covered arms out into the moon’s white 
radiance. 

‘'To-morrow we make up a coasting party 
magnijique, rCest ce pas?'' M. d’Aillebout had 
said when Philippa burst out, explosively: 

“Gosh!” 

They all began to laugh, when something in 
the solemn rapture of her face silenced them. 

“Show to-night and coasting to-morrow, 
’n’ my bicycle, ’n’ Anne ’n’ Virginia ’n’ 
everybody here, ’n’ the Cove next summer, 
’n’ everything. It’s — ^it’s almost — ” She 
hid her face on her mother’s shoulder. She 
was horribly afraid the tears were coming. 

“Perhaps you’ll believe another time when 
I tell you you’re going to have a fortune.” 
Anne’s important voice broke the silence. 

“There is then to be a fortune for Mees 
Phileeppa?” asked M. d’Aillebout. 

Anne explained. 

“The fortune for Mees Phileeppa ees find 
eetself here and here.” 

He tapped lightly Philippa’s forehead and 
then where, under the pretty blue dress, 
throbbed her heart. 


THE END 


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